


take me out to neverland

by blackkat



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Fix-It, Fluff, Humor, KakaObi Week 2019, M/M, Memory Loss, On the Run, Rescue Missions, Spymaster Sasori, discussion of medical procedures, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-19 21:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17609783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Kakashi glances up at the sun, at the mountains to their left. “We’re somewhere past the River Country border,” he says. “Once we find the road, it shouldn’t be more than two days to the village.”Two days. Obito closes his eyes, steels himself. That sounds too long and too short all at once, and he can't figure outwhy. He opens his mouth, pauses, and looks at the mountain as well. It’s not the correct silhouette, he thinks, but he doesn’t know what would make itright.“What if there's someone after us?” he asks, but this time Kakashi pulls him along with a hand on his elbow that feels more like a restraint than a guide. He doesn’t answer.





	take me out to neverland

**Author's Note:**

> For KakaObi Week 2019! Truly the best week, lbr. Today's prompt was _Memories | Reincarnation_. 
> 
> Originally, I went into this fic expecting a few hundred words of amnesia fic, but obviously it got...a little out of hand. As did most of the other entries. Ah well. I don't have entries for every day of the two-week period, but hopefully the length of what I _do_ have will help make up for that.

“I don’t know who you are,” Obito confesses quietly.

The grey-haired man stops dead, no expression on his face. He stares for a long moment, and Obito feels like he just did something unforgivable, like he just broke something irreparably, but it’s the _truth_ and he can't take it back. He tears his eyes away, looks down at his lap as he twists his fingers into the hem of his shirt, and tries to keep from curling in on himself.

For several long, long moments, there's absolutely no sound. Then, deliberately, the man takes a step forward, another. “That’s fine,” he says evenly, but Obito knows, _knows_ that it isn't, that it was the worst thing he could possibly say. “How does your head feel?”

Obito hesitates. “Fine,” he offers, even though it hurts. There's a low-level ache behind his eyes, something that gets sharper and harsher if he thinks about it for too long.

The man hums, light and a little disbelieving. He crouches down at Obito's side, and when Obito tenses he stops, one hand halfway outstretched. Takes a breath, visible eye flickering up to Obito's face, and then says, “You got hit in the chest, too. Can I check the bandages?”

Something about the thought of letting someone touch the torn flesh over his heart makes Obito's skin crawl. _Vulnerable_ , he thinks, _it’s dangerous_ , but—

“Do you have to?” he asks, tries to make it halfway to a joke and knows he fails.

The man’s mouth is covered by a dark mask, but Obito can see the way a wry smile touches the corner of his eye, adds a hint of humor to his face. “I don’t want you to get an infection,” he says. “But I don’t _have_ to, no. Do you know any medical techniques?”

Obito doesn’t remember. He closes his eyes, rubs his knuckles over them with a grimace. It’s like grasping at clouds, vapor slipping through his fingers as he tries to drag it closer. “I don’t…”

He hums like that’s answer enough, then tips his head. “I’ll make it quick.”

Obito doesn’t want to him to do it at all, but he nods, tips his head back against the tree and grits his teeth. The first touch of fingers to his chest makes him flinch, and unbidden an image of dark rooms and a half-withered figure rise in his mind, bringing a flicker of bone-deep terror with it. He sucks in a sharp breath, and the man’s fingers still.

“Obito?” he asks quietly.

“Can you talk?” Obito blurts, and desperation is a sharp and angry thing inside his chest rising like a wave. “Just—say something, anything—”

“Anything,” the man says promptly, solemnly, but when Obito cracks open an eye to give him a dirty look he beams back, perfectly innocent. Glances down again, attention going back to his work as he carefully strips the layer of stained bandages away, and says, “Your name is Obito, and you're my best friend.”

“I am?” Obito asks, startled. He can't help but look at the man, but he isn't looking back.

The man nods in agreement, tipping his head down just a little. It means that Obito can't see his face, but his hands are gentle as he eases the cloth away from Obito's skin. “You're a shinobi from Konoha,” he confirms, “And we went to the Academy together. We were on the same genin team, too, with a girl named Nohara Rin.”

Obito flinches. The name _hurts_ , jars through his chest like an electric shock, and he looks up towards the spreading branches of the tree, trying to breathe through it. “Oh,” he says, and his voice is small, uncertain. “You—what’s your name?”

There's another long, drawn-out moment of silence. “Kakashi,” the man says finally. “I'm Kakashi, and you’ve been my best friend since the Academy.”

 _Kakashi_ , Obito repeats, and there's a touch of fear to it, that he might forget this too. But…it feels vaguely, distantly as if he already knows it. Like opening a book, and realizing that the first line feels familiar, even if nothing else does.

“And you're from Konoha too,” he says, more because that’s the only logical conclusion than because he remembers. But Kakashi gives him a faint smile either way, glancing up for half a second before he goes back to the wide, ragged wound carved into Obito's chest.

“I'm from Konoha, too,” he confirms. “We were taught by Namikaze Minato, and we haven’t seen each other in a while, but we’re still best friends.”

There's something strange in his voice, a note that doesn’t quite fit. Obito can't parse what it is, though, can't read a stranger, and even though it turns guiltily in his chest that’s what Kakashi is right now. Swallowing, he twists his fingers into the fabric of his pants, and tries to remember how he got here. He can't, though; all he remembers is waking up in this forest with Kakashi next to him, a terrible, tearing pain in his chest and a low-level ache in his head. Everything else that he tries to reach for is as perfectly blank and white and featureless as an unbroken expanse of snow.

“Friends?” he asks, and knows it sounds pathetic, thin in the air.

Kakashi glances up, meets his eyes with perfect steadiness, a light in his gaze that makes something itch under Obito's skin. He reaches up, hooking a hand around the back of Obito's neck, and pulls him in until he can press their cheeks together, the rasp of his breathing loud in Obito's ear.

“Friends,” he confirms, and there's an edge to it, like a dare. “You're my friend, Obito, and I'm never going to let anything hurt you again, all right?”

The unsettled, uneasy fear that’s been growing in Obito's chest settles at those words. He takes a breath, leans into Kakashi even though it makes his chest ache. “I'm sorry,” he says, and his voice breaks. His eyes feel hot, and when he blinks there's a splash of warm wetness on his cheek. “I'm sorry I don’t remember you, Kakashi.”

Kakashi’s hand tightens, just a little. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I remember you enough for both of us. And we’ll get Tsunade to look at your head when we get back to Konoha.”

Something about going back to Konoha feels…wrong, vaguely, but if Kakashi thinks it’s the right thing to do, Obito can hardly argue. He woke up without a single thing in his head, and Kakashi’s been taking care of him ever since.

“What are _you_ like?” he asks instead of dwelling on it. “I—can you tell me?”

The silence stretches for so long that Obito almost thinks Kakashi isn't going to answer, but at length he takes a breath, then says slowly, “I have dogs. I'm a jounin. You gave me your eye when we were thirteen.”

That doesn’t make sense. Obito has two eyes of his own, and—surely he’d remember something like that. But he doesn’t. There's only a yawning emptiness inside of him, absent of any clues, and he makes a sound of frustration, curls in on himself and grabs onto his hair, knotting his fingers in the short strands.

“It’s all right,” Kakashi says, like he knows the self-directed anger that’s rising in Obito's chest. “It will come back to you, Obito. You just need to rest and recover a little.”

“But—” Obito shuts his mouth, sealing the complaint inside, and buries his face in his upraised knees. “I can't _remember_ ,” he whispers.

Kakashi’s hand cups the back of his head, gently urges him up. When Obito finally raises his head, Kakashi’s expression has twisted, turned into something fierce and determined. “You _will_ ,” Kakashi says with perfect certainty, and tugs Obito forward even as he falls back, settling on a single bedroll that’s laid out on the grass. “And even if you don’t, Obito, I'm right here.”

 _But I don’t remember_ you _, and that’s the most maddening thing of all_ , Obito wants to say, but doesn’t. He follows the pull of Kakashi’s hands instead, lets himself be settled on the bedroll. It’s narrow, sized for one person, but Kakashi fits them together like two pieces of a puzzle, rolls halfway onto Obito so he can curl an arm under Obito's head even as he settles partially on his chest, and murmurs, “You might remember something in the morning.”

Obito doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t try to argue, either. Kakashi probably has a better idea than he does, at this point. But—

“You're bossy,” he mutters, closing his eyes.

Kakashi’s laugh is rough, startled, sounds unpracticed in a way that means he doesn’t laugh like that often. “You’ve said that before,” he assures Obito, and hooks his free arm around him, hand settling on his side with fingers splayed. It’s a firm grip, almost possessive, and Obito wants to protest but he also doesn’t. Wants to get away but also wants to lie here, just like this, until the moon falls out of the sky.

“I don’t _need_ sleep,” he says, some half-awake instinct spurring the words.

There's a long hesitation. “Sleep anyway,” Kakashi says. “You got your brain scrambled. It might help.”

Obito has a sinking feeling that it won't, but Kakashi clearly wants to believe it, so he doesn’t try to argue.

 

 

The ache in his chest is better the next time they change the dressing, and Obito's head still feels tender from the inside out, but it’s not debilitating. He can stand up without tripping over his own feet, like last time he tried, and Kakashi’s expression isn't quite so pinched with worry. He still grips Obito's elbow as they start out, and Obito thinks about protesting but Kakashi is leading, knows where they're going when Obito doesn’t have even the vaguest idea. It’s easier to lean into Kakashi, to let him lead while Obito focuses on where to put his feet, and in some vague way he knows they're moving impossibly slowly, that they _should_ be going faster, using the trees, but he can't quite recall the exact method.

“Is it far?” he asks, to distract himself from the growing, itching _wrongness_ that makes him want to turn around, run the other way as fast and far as his fees can take him.

Kakashi glances up at the sun, at the mountains to their left. “We’re somewhere past the River Country border,” he says. “Once we find the road, it shouldn’t be more than two days to the village.”

Two days. Obito closes his eyes, steels himself. That sounds too long and too short all at once, and he can't figure out _why_. He opens his mouth, pauses, and looks at the mountain as well. It’s not the correct silhouette, he thinks, but he doesn’t know what would make it _right_.

“What if there's someone after us?” he asks, but this time Kakashi pulls him along with a hand on his elbow that feels more like a restraint than a guide. He doesn’t answer.

 

 

Obito doesn’t remember anything, but he should. He does, faintly, feelings instead of anything concrete, but—it’s enough to know that Kakashi is acting strangely. Obito knows nothing else about him, not his family, not his clan name, not his favorite food, but he can tell that the way Kakashi watches him isn't how it should be. There's something like desperation in his eyes, and he’s never further than a handful of feet from Obito's side.

 _We’re shinobi_ , he says, but the second Obito stumbles Kakashi catches him, pulls him up with gentle hands and keeps him moving. He’s wary of anything coming after them, keeps saying _you're my best friend_ like it’s the only thing in the world that matters, and when they have to pause for Obito to rest Kakashi stands watch with the prowling, vibrating awareness of a big predator in too small a cage, daring the world to come close.

That part Obito worries at, picks over, tries to understand. Kakashi is protective, and maybe it’s just Obito's injuries, his slowness, the way he can't touch chakra without his head spinning and nausea washing over him, but…it feels like that’s not the right conclusion.

 _We haven’t seen each other in a few years,_ Kakashi says whenever Obito asks about things in their lives that must be recent. But—if they're both from the same village, if they're friends who are close enough that Obito gave Kakashi his eye, that doesn’t make sense.

Obito's heard hurts, thinking about it. He’s been trying to remember, but it’s like there's nothing in his head at all but snow, and he doesn’t know how to keep it at bay. Worries, a little, that it will keep encroaching, will wipe out everything he still knows without mercy or pause. If that happens, there won't even be an _Obito_ left, and Kakashi will be limping along carrying what might as well be a corpse on his way back to Konoha.

When they finally stop for the night, though, Obito still remembers exactly as much as he did earlier, no more and no less. He slides gratefully to the ground when Kakashi stops, leaning back against the trunk of the willow they're half-hidden under, and Kakashi crouches down in front of him, checking his legs with a quick, careful touch.

“I'm okay,” Obito says, and means it. He feels drained, shaky with exhaustion, but there's nothing wrong with him except the empty place in his head. Even his chest feels better, only a vague, pulling ache when he moves too much.

Kakashi hums skeptically, but rocks back on his heels. “There might be fish in the pond,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at the small pool a few yards away. “I think you should eat something besides rations. If you need me, just yell, all right?”

Obito waves a hand at him, dismissing the hovering. “‘m _fine_ ,” he insists, even if it’s hard to keep his eyes open. “Go fish, Bakashi.”

Kakashi’s breath catches, and there's a long pause. Then, slowly, Kakashi gets to his feet. There's some rustling, and a moment later a blanket drops over Obito, is pulled up to his shoulders. “Scream if something scares you,” Kakashi says, trying for light, but it comes out just a little rough.

Obito doesn’t bother answering, because the blanket is warm and the willow is surprisingly comfortable. It feels good to sit down, and better to relax; he doesn’t know if it’s the walking or the wounds that are making him so tired, but he feels heavy with exhaustion. Not quite sleepy, though, and he leans against the willow, listening to the faint splash of Kakashi in the pool, without sliding fully into sleep. It hovers, heavy and soft against his mind, but not overwhelming, and he settles into it, lets himself drift.

A hand on his shoulder half-wakes him from his haze, but he’s too comfortable to open his eyes, doesn’t even want to move. He takes a breath, ready to complain, and almost instantly the hand is gone, retreating. Through the veil of his lashes, Obito can see Kakashi crouch down, looking him over, and then blow out a breath. He sinks back on his heels, dragging a hand through his hair, but his gaze doesn’t leave Obito.

It’s a heavy gaze, not so much intent as…layered. Touched with something sad, and old, and something newly sharp as well. Kakashi twirls a kunai around his fingers, glancing down at it for a brief moment before he looks back up, and his expression twists. He rakes his hair out of his eyes again, then sits down, folding his legs under himself. He’s close enough to touch, and he does, reaching out to ghost his fingers up Obito's arm.

Obito can feels the barest edge of the gesture, a prickling sort of awareness, and he thinks _I'm not used to touch_ with a sense of enlightenment that he probably shouldn’t have about himself. It’s true, though, he’s almost certain of it; his skin shivers with a lack of familiarity, and Kakashi hasn’t even touched it directly.

But—it’s also not a touch that’s familiar on Kakashi’s side. Kakashi looks like what he’s doing is new, forbidden. Something he doesn’t want to get caught at, but can't resist, and his breath shakes a little as he pulls his hand back, rubbing the heel of his palm against his visible eye.

“I didn’t know,” he says, and Obito can't tell if it’s meant for him or simply Kakashi talking to himself. “I didn’t know.”

Obito thinks of opening his eyes fully, asking what Kakashi means. Maybe reaching out to return the touch, because he can still feel it traced like heat across his arm. But he’s been silent and still for too long; sleep is dropping, bringing darkness with it, and between one breath and the next he’s gone.

 

 

“You like pink,” Kakashi tells him, perfectly earnest. “And glitter.”

“Bullshit,” Obito answers immediately, because he might not know anything about himself, but he knows _that_ much. Besides, his nails are painted dark blue. There's no way he wouldn’t go for a color he liked if he was going to go to all that trouble. He even painted his _toenails_. If he liked glittery pink, his nails would be glittery pink. But they're not, so Obito feels pretty safe calling that _utter bullshit_.

Kakashi smiles like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Maa, maa, Obito, how am I supposed to jog your memory with facts about your life if you keep calling me a liar?”

“It’s because you _are_ a liar,” Obito mutters, well aware of that much. “You won't even tell me my favorite _color_ straight up.”

“I would never lie to you,” Kakashi lies, lyingly, like a liar. When Obito gives him a dirty look, he just beams back, personally innocent, and then asks, “What do _you_ think your favorite color is?”

He might as well ask Obito what he thinks of the sociopolitical climate of Tea Country on the blue moon in midsummer. Obito worries at the question like a dog at a bone, turning it over, looking around them and trying to figure out a preference for _any_ color. All he can think of is the blue on his nails, but…that doesn’t feel right. “I don’t know,” he says, frustrated. “I can't—”

“Orange,” Kakashi says, watching his face. “Your favorite color is orange.”

Obito stops, blinks. That’s—that’s right. He does like orange. It’s the simplest fact possible, but it still makes him swallow, nod like his throat is thick. “Goggles,” he blurts out, and isn't sure where the word comes from. “I like orange goggles.”

Kakashi’s hand is bruising-tight around his wrist, fingers curled all the way around his arm. “You—you lost a pair a few years ago,” he says. “I don’t think you’ve replaced them.”

That doesn’t feel right. There's something orange Obito had recently, something he wore. The exact identity of it is a thousand miles out of reach, though, and trying to claw it back into reach is as futile as trying to jump up and grab the clouds. Obito blows out a sharp breath, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and raises his head to look at the road in front of them. It twists down through the approaching valley, cutting between green fields, and he can see a few figures working among the rows but there's no one on the path, no other trace of human life.

There should have been a village, he thinks with the strange uncertain certainty that means it’s connected to a memory he no longer has. A village where they sold dango, and he stopped once—

A sharp, stabbing pain lances through his head, drives a cry from his throat before he can stop it. His legs buckle under the force, and he hits the dirt hard on his knees, clutching at his head. Grits his teeth, trying to breathe, but it _hurts_ —

“—bito! Obito. _Obito_!”

“Don’t _shout_ ,” he rasps, because everything inside his head feels tender. _You scrambled your brain_ , Kakashi had said, and right now that feels like the most accurate description possible.

There's a breath of ragged relief, and Kakashi gets an arm under his, braces him where he’s kneeling. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

Obito swallows. “I remembered…something.” Not anything specific, but—an explosion. Light and heat and force, catching him before he could step aside, but not because he hadn’t been expecting it. And…a face high above the blast, startled, almost horrified. Blond hair, he thinks, but that’s all he can recall.

“That’s how you got hurt,” Kakashi says quietly. “A bomb landed almost on our heads, and a piece of stone caught you in the chest.” He touches the heavy pad of gauze covering Obito's heart, skims his fingers across it with an expression that’s almost dark, but then shakes it off and glances up at Obito with a smile that doesn’t come anywhere close to his eye. “You shouldn’t think about it too hard, if it hurts like that.”

“Believe me, I think I learned my lesson,” Obito mutters, but he lets Kakashi help him back to his feet, gamely matches his stride when he starts walking again.

But…Kakashi doesn’t let go of him. He keeps hanging on to Obito's elbow, and for the second time it doesn’t feel like support.

The bomb, Obito thinks, and it aches but he can't help it. The bomb fell, but—

It wasn’t meant for him.

 

 

“We’re getting closer,” Kakashi says, wringing out one of the wrappings for Obito's wound in the stream. “Maybe another two days, if we keep this pace.”

Obito is fairly certain that’s what he said two days ago, but he doesn’t argue. Nothing around them strikes him as familiar, and he hasn’t seen another vaguely wrong landmark like the first mountain, either. Just trees and streams, winding through farmed fields and on into the distance, barely broken by the rough dirt of the road. The river where they’ve stopped for the day is wide and lazy, the current barely enough to tug at Obito's ankles as he dangles his feet in the water. It feels good, though, cool and clean, and Obito wants to slide in. His skin itches, and he doesn’t know if it’s the reminder that they're heading towards Konoha or the dirt from several days of travel.

He looks at Kakashi, since there isn't much else to look at, and also because it feels…familiar, to watch him. Easy, like something Obito has done a hundred thousand times before, to the point that it’s become instinct. Looks, careful not to get caught, and—

Kakashi turns, unexpected. His eye catches Obito's, crinkles in a smile, and he tosses him the bandage. “Why don’t you hang that over a branch,” he suggests. “We should have enough sun for it to dry.”

They could have kept walking for at least another hour, Obito doesn’t say. He just rises to do as he’s told, because that’s been the pattern these last few days. They end early, start late, never seem to get anywhere even when they walk what Obito thinks is a good distance.

The bomb that fell wasn’t intended to hurt Obito.

He doesn’t know what to do with this understanding, this shard of memory tangled up with pain that hits every time he tries to remember more. It doesn’t _help_ anything; his head is still a blank white space, filled with nothing, and Obito doesn’t have any hope of clawing something of substance out of the white void. Kakashi isn't helping, either; for all his claims of trying to help Obito remember, any conversations about what Obito should remember, or his personal habits, or his preferences quickly devolve into humor, Kakashi’s earnest attempts to convince Obito of things that have a high probability of being complete nonsense. Obito generally only has the patience for one or two of those conversations a day, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Kakashi is fully aware of that, and derails them as quickly as possible.

And yet, Obito hasn’t confronted him. Hasn’t tried to walk away, or even press Kakashi. It—hurts. Not like the stabbing pain of remembering the bomb, but like the ache in his chest when he told Kakashi he didn’t remember him the first time. Guilty, almost, cringing away from the thought of hurting Kakashi even though Obito doesn’t _know_ him.

But Kakashi knows him. Probably. Mostly?

Obito is hardly sure of anything at this point.

“No dry wood,” Kakashi says, sounding mildly put out as he scans the are around them. “Everything’s been cleared.”

It’s farmland more than forest, here. They haven’t been able to make a campfire since the passed out of the scattered forest Kakashi said was close to the River Country border, but Obito hasn’t minded. It’s not cold at night, has even been getting warmer as they venture deeper into Fire Country, and they still only have one bedroll to share, which keeps them warm enough. Kakashi isn't afraid to cling when he’s chilly, and Obito has woken up every morning with another body practically plastered to his.

“I think we’ll survive,” Obito says dryly, and turns, looking up and down the road. No people, again; they’ve been walking for days now and have maybe encountered two or three on the road, a handful more in the fields. Obito knows that Fire Country is populated, but if he had only these past few days to draw a conclusion from, he’d almost say it was deserted. Still, it makes it easier to strip off his shirt, then his pants and gloves. The high-necked shirt is Kakashi’s, dark blue that doesn’t quite match Obito's pants; a loan, he assumes, and hopes Kakashi won't mind if he washes it in the river. At this point it’s just as dirty as Obito is, though, and almost stiff enough to stand up on its own.

“Are you jumping in the river?” Kakashi asks, but when Obito glances over he’s looking away, eyes on the far bank. “There are farmers downstream, you know.”

Obito rolls his eyes. “All the farmhouses we’ve passed have wells,” he retorts. “And I'm not _that_ filthy.”

“You only say that because you can't smell yourself,” Kakashi says dryly, but he doesn’t protest as Obito slides off the bank and into the water, taking his clothes with him. He even wanders over, though he stays well out of splashing range as he sits down. The itch of his gaze on Obito's shoulders is back, but Obito doesn’t let himself acknowledge it, keeps his attention on scrubbing his skin down with a handful of sand from the bottom of the river.

“Did we finish our mission?” Obito asks, and ducks under the surface to get his hair wet.

“What?” Kakashi asks, sounding distracted, and when Obito glances over his shoulder Kakashi is looking away, eye faintly narrowed as he studies the sky.

There's a flicker of disappointment in Obito's chest, but he shoves it down, asks again, “The mission we were on, did we finish it?”

Kakashi tears his gaze from the sky to blink at Obito, looking faintly taken aback for half a second before he glances away again. “We did,” he says quietly. “We saved the Kazekage before he could be killed.”

Another lance of pain spikes, and Obito covers it by diving down again, letting out a stream of bubbles as he hisses through his teeth. By now he’s learned not to dwell on whatever thought gets that reaction, so he focuses on the silt under his fingers, the silvery flash of a fish in the current, the sway of his hair like riverweed around his face. Then he surfaces again, shaking his head, and Kakashi chuckles.

“My dogs do that exact thing,” he says, and Obito rolls his eyes.

“Do they kick you out of bed, too?” he asks. “Because that’s what’s going to happen here if you keep it up.”

Kakashi raises his hands, expression firmly set to mock protest. “I'm not keeping anything up,” he says blithely. “It was just a comparison.”

“Keep it to yourself,” Obito tells him, unimpressed, and starts scrubbing out his clothes as best he can.

The weight of Kakashi’s gaze rests on him again, though he’s looking elsewhere by the time Obito glances up at him. “Do you want the bed to yourself?” he asks.

 _No_ , Obito wants to answer instantly. It’s right there on the tip of his tongue, ready to spring out. He closes his mouth before it can, though, considers the question from a _why would Kakashi ask that_ angle rather than a _do I want that_ one. “No,” he finally says, more slowly. “I don’t—I like—”

 _I like sleeping with you_ , he wants to say, but it’s impossible to get the words out of his mouth when they call up an image of something entirely different than what they’ve been doing the past few nights.

He’s not sure if Kakashi understands what he’s trying to say, or if he just guesses well enough. “It’s good to share body heat,” he offers, eye crinkling.

That’s close to the truth and also miles from it, but Obito lets it lie. “You're a leech,” he mutters instead, and it feels like his ears are burning, like there's heat creeping up through his face.

“I have eight dogs,” Kakashi says without a hint of shame. “If I don’t take up as much space as possible, they push me off the bed.”

Somehow, Obito can't imagine that kind of…comfort. He hesitates, but—the image is sweet, for all it’s unfamiliar. “What are your dogs’ names?” he asks, because Kakashi deflects questions about himself as soon as they're posed, turns the question back around to Obito without fail, but this seems like a safer sort of conversation for both of them.

“Pakkun, Bisuke, Bull, Uhei, Urushi, Akino, Shiba, and Guruko,” Kakashi says cheerfully. He opens his mouth to go on, too, but—

“Pakkun,” Obito says slowly, and glances up to find Kakashi watching him, a strange expression on his face. “He’s…small.”

Kakashi shows him the size between two hands. “My oldest summons,” he says, though there's something in his gaze that doesn’t feel quite right. “One of the best trackers, too.”

Obito nods, ducks under the water again to get away from that look. It drags across his skin like fingernails, unpleasant and unwelcome. He doesn’t _know_ why he remembers Kakashi’s dog and not the man himself, hates that he does, but—

He’s seen Pakkun before. He’s sure of it. From a distance, he thinks, frowning, but it feels right. From somewhere far away, he’d looked over and seen the dog. Had seen Kakashi, maybe, but that part greys out, fades to blank white, and he rubs his hand over his face with a grimace before he rises to the surface again.

Kakashi isn't on the bank. He’s by the tree, turned away as he watches the sky, and the line of his shoulders is a lonely, distant, familiar thing.

 

 

“You want to stop at a town?” Obito asks, a little incredulous. “Who are you and what did you do with the asshole I've been traveling with?”

Kakashi chuckles, like this isn't a perfectly valid question after almost a week of sleeping on the ground. “It’s going to rain,” he says. “Cover would be nice.”

It’s already rained on them once, and it wasn’t the end of the world. They found a fallen tree, made a makeshift shelter with some leafy branches, and it was sufficient. Obito won't say no to the chance at some hot food, though, even if some prickling instinct across his skin warns him that going into the town might be a bad idea. He can't understand _why_ ; it’s tiny, with barely a handful of shops clustered along the main road. There isn't even a shinobi outpost manned by a bored chuunin squad.

“If we’re springing for an inn, can we spring for a real dinner, too?”

“Maa, one would think you're disparaging my hard work spent cooking for you, Obito.” The offense in Kakashi’s voice would be more convincing if he weren’t smiling at the same time, the lines around his eyes making it visible despite the mask.

Obito scoffs. “Meat half-burned over a campfire is only interesting the first half-dozen times,” he retorts.

“You're so picky,” Kakashi laments, but his gaze turns to a shop as they pass it. Obito glances over, too; clothes fill the window, not quite up to the standard of the capital’s seamstresses but nice regardless. He raises a brow, first at their warped, rather travelworn reflections and then at Kakashi, who doesn’t acknowledge the expression. He keeps walking, tugging Obito along with him, and Obito lets himself be distracted as they head for the inn.

There's a child loitering outside, a boy of indeterminate age who gives them a wide-eyed, startled look like a rabbit in the path of a jutsu and bolts around the corner of the building. Obito hesitates, frowning, because that was—that was a dramatic reaction, because the people here must have seen shinobi before—

“Maa, Obito, don’t be so slow,” Kakashi says, in the tone that’s almost a taunt at the same time as it tries to be light, and Obito rolls his eyes and keeps moving.

Thankfully, the innkeeper doesn’t have the same reaction as the boy, or if she does she puts it aside in the face of paying customers. Even so, Obito leaves Kakashi to make arrangements, turns away from the desk to study the calligraphy decorating the walls. They're finely done, beautiful, but Obito looks across them without much interest. The majority of his attention is on the cadence of Kakashi’s voice, lowered in conversation, and the innkeeper’s quiet answers. He doesn’t quite want to know what they're talking about, but at the same time some instinct whispers that he needs to know everything, that the world’s future rests on offhand bits of knowledge surreptitiously gleaned.

Deliberately, determinedly, Obito forces his attention away from their conversation, turns instead to the next hanging on the wall, and—

Stops.

 _Dream_ , is the next character shown, and Obito's breath tangles in his chest, knots there like some vast hand has seized it. His head _aches_ as if it’s been split open, but though he sways on his feet he stays where he is, staring at the strokes of the character as if they’re knife-cuts laid into his skin.

 _Dream_ , he thinks, dazed, and that’s—that’s _important_ , he needs to remember what he dreamed, _why_ he dreamed it. It’s _vital_ , and as he stares at the character he thinks he can almost see the edges of what is supposed to be in his head. There's something dark behind the blank whiteness, something looming, something _angry_ with teeth and claws and fire, and—

“Obito?” Kakashi catches his arm, and it’s like a wash of cool water, like the golden glow of a barrier seal. Obito staggers, released from the dream’s grip, and almost trips right into Kakashi’s arms. There's a sound of faint alarm, and Kakashi drags him up with an arm around his waist, helps him get his feet under him and quickly heads down the narrow hall, half-dragging Obito when his feet don’t want to keep up.

“I'm okay,” Obito says, like he can't feel the lines of the kanji still flayed into his skin. He catches the edge of the doorway, manages to pull away from Kakashi’s hold just enough to stagger across the room and collapse onto the bed, rubbing at his eyes. There's a long hesitation, and then Kakashi slowly sinks down next to him, not touching, just _there_.

It’s enough. Obito leans in, drops his head against Kakashi’s shoulder, and grinds the heel of his palm against the center of his chest. The wound pulls, but not enough for him to care, and he breathes out, shaky and uncertain.

He dreamed something. Something _terrible_. It’s a beautiful, terrible dream, so awful he could puke and so wonderful he could cry, but he can't _remember_. The darkness is trapped behind a wall of white, and some part of Obito is desperately, cravenly _glad_ that he can't reach it anymore.

“What did I _do_?” he breathes, and Kakashi doesn’t answer. He curls his fingers into Obito's hair, holding his head against his shoulder, and wraps an arm around his waist like he’s never going to let go.

 

 

Waking comes slowly, painfully. Obito's head has been hollowed out, split in two and then messily stitched back together, but the light of day makes it better. When he opens his eyes all he can see is silver hair, warm skin. Kakashi’s arms are still around him, clutching Obito to his chest with a desperation that he didn’t so much as hint at while awake, and Obito would protest except it feels a thousand times better than the awful certainty of last night, the knowledge that he’d done something terrible but couldn’t remember what it was.

Kakashi knows, he thinks. Or at the very least, Kakashi suspects. It’s the reason for the constant traveling, the way he keeps one eye on the road behind them and checks the sky every few minutes. Kakashi’s keeping him away from someone, and Obito can't even remember who.

He thinks about sitting up, pulling away, but though the inn bed is wider than the bedroll, he doesn’t want the space. He’s happy right here, with Kakashi’s heartbeat under his ear, the greedy grip of his hands on Obito's bare back. Shivering, he closes his eyes again, shifts forward to tuck his head against Kakashi’s collarbone and breathes out, letting the tension slide out of his muscles.

With a soft sound, Kakashi stirs. His fingers spread, stroke across Obito's skin, then curl again. He hums, tipping his head, and rests his cheek on Obito's hair. “Now who’s the leech?” he asks, but the words are as warm as the bare millimeters of space between their bodies.

“Who exactly do you think is holding who here, Bakashi?” Obito asks, but it’s hard to be cranky when Kakashi’s fingers are tracing patterns on his back. _Familiar_ patterns, even.

Obito pauses, then tips his head to squint disbelievingly at Kakashi. “Are you drawing a _road map_ on me?”

“The roads of Fire Country are a complex system—” Kakashi starts, in the tone that means he is _absolutely_ fucking with Obito. Not about to let that stand, Obito grabs the lonely pillow that’s been pushed to the far edge of the bed and brings it down hard on Kakashi’s stupid, smirking face.

With a spluttering laugh, Kakashi detangles himself, snatches the pillow out of Obito's hands, and rolls them, pinning it over Obito's face. Obito yelps in offense, jabs an elbow at a vulnerable kidney, and when Kakashi dodges he steals the pillow, flips it around, and wallops Kakashi over the head with it. When he goes for a second hit, though, Kakashi grabs his wrists, wrestles him down to the bed and pins him there with the full weight of his body, sprawled full-length over Obito.

“ _Cheater_ ,” Obito accuses, and Kakashi is giggling too hard to talk, but he shakes his head in denial. It’s too much; Obito laughs, too, letting go of the pillow and sliding his hands down to lace his fingers through Kakashi’s. He grips them tightly, and Kakashi squeezes in return, rubbing his thumbs across the backs of Obito's hands.

“Is it cheating if you started it?” Kakashi muses, but his gaze is bright with humor, and Obito rolls his eyes.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it and you _know_ it, bastard,” he accuses, though he can't manage to inject any bite into his voice.

“Of course it does,” Kakashi counters breezily. “You directly enabled my cheating by starting the fight, or I wouldn’t have cheated at all.”

Obito splutters, deeply offended by that stupid line of terrible reasoning. “Bakashi, that’s _not how it fucking works_ —”

Kakashi pulls his mask down and kisses him, fast and desperate and deep, and Obito sucks in a startled breath, but can't stop the way it escapes him, breathy and soft. Kakashi’s hands tighten on his, grip hard, and he pushes in, tips Obito's head back to let him deepen it. Obito shudders at the slide of his tongue, the heat of his mouth, the weight of his body as he leans into it. It’s a surprise that feels a long time in coming, unexpected but at the same time exactly what Obito has been waiting for since he first woke up in Kakashi’s arms.

Slowly, carefully, Kakashi eases the kiss back, softens it, gentles until it’s a bare, nearly chaste slant of lips, again and again like he can't get enough. Obito doesn’t want it to stop, doesn’t ever want him to pull away entirely, and he frees a hand, loops his arm around Kakashi’s shoulders. He wants to pull him in, wants another deep kiss, wants to lie here in the morning sunlight for every spare minute they have and find out what every one of Kakashi’s kisses tastes like.

But that one motion seems to startle Kakashi, makes him jerk back. All at once his eyes widen, and he scrambles off the bed, turns. Obito jerks up, reaching for him, says, “Kakashi, _wait_ —”

It’s too late. There's a whirlwind of leaves and chakra, a rattle from the sill of the half-open window, and Kakashi is gone.

 

 

The innkeeper gives Obito an odd look when he pays her for another night, vindictively using the wallet Kakashi abandoned in his haste to run away, but she doesn’t try to argue. Obito keeps his eyes to himself the whole time, doesn’t look at the calligraphy on the walls or much of anything beyond the woman and the ryō he passes over, and escapes the main room as quickly as he can.

Being on his own feels like being stranded, after so many days with Kakashi barely three steps from his side. Obito paces the room for several minutes, throws himself onto the bed and studies the ceiling, and thinks suddenly, _I could leave_.

It’s true. He could. All he would have to do is walk out the door. There isn't any luggage to hold him back, not so much as a spare shirt to his name, and he feels certain that he could move faster than the lazy pace Kakashi has been keeping them to. It will likely be a few hours until Kakashi works up the nerve to return, if he ever does, and by that time Obito could put a good amount of distance between them.

He doesn’t _want_ to leave, though. His mouth still feels almost bruised, sensitive and hot, and he can feel Kakashi’s weight like a phantom imprint on top of him. Laying in the bed where they just were makes him restless, makes him want to reach out and pull Kakashi down onto the mattress with him one more time, but Kakashi is gone. He ran away, and Obito is angry and seething and _hurt_ , just a little, deep down in his chest.

The room is small and sparse and doesn’t hold much, but there is a mirror on the wall, carefully polished. Obito rises to his feet, glances at the surface as he tosses Kakashi’s money back on top of his pack, and then immediately turns away again. He looks…dark. Angrier than he is, and without any hint of softness, but…Kakashi has never seemed to care before. Any reaction Kakashi might have had to his face is possible, but not plausible. Not when they’ve been traveling together, not when Kakashi keeps insisting that they're best friends.

But—

But they haven’t seen each other in a few years. Kakashi knows a lot about his life, but there's a cutoff date, like they stopped being close after that point. Obito pauses, chewing that thought over for several minutes as he picks at the edge of the sheet, and…it makes sense. Vaguely. Kakashi kissed him like he’d been wanting to, like it was a natural outcome of their pillow fight, and—what if he could, once?

The bomb wasn’t meant for Obito, but he took the hit anyway. He stepped in, and he pushed Kakashi out of the way, and then there was only blank whiteness in his head.

An old relationship, then, Obito thinks. They were together, once, and close enough that Obito gave Kakashi one of his eyes. but they must have broken up at one point, and they’ve been distant since.

Obito's been watching Kakashi, though. That’s the only explanation. He feels like he _knows_ Kakashi, but it’s a distant, wary thing, leaving a vast amount of space between them. Maybe—maybe Obito didn’t want to break up? But then why would Kakashi kiss him like that?

It’s confusing, and Obito _hates_ the half-certain mess of emotions curled in his chest. He rubs at them, closes his eyes, tries to think. He’s done something terrible; that knowledge sits on his chest like a weight, inarguable, immovable. Something connected to a dream, something bright and awful, and—maybe that’s why Kakashi left him. Maybe he wants Obito now in spite of himself, and has been fighting it. And—and kissing Obito was a horrifying moment, because he lost control, and now it can never happen again—

Obit grinds his teeth together, scrubs his hands over his face, and rises to his feet. The room is stifling-small, choking him, and he needs to leave _desperately_. Going out the window seems like the easy choice, since the main room has that calligraphy and Obito doesn’t want to face the _dream_ character staring at him like an accusation from the wall.

It’s morning, but the street outside is still quiet, and Obito landing in the dirt below the window only draws a brief look from a farmer with an oxcart. She keeps moving, doesn’t so much as glance over again, and whether it’s fear or politeness Obito doesn’t care. He turns off the street, heads for where the packed earth disappears down an incline towards the edge of a narrow stream. There's nowhere in particular that he wants to go, no urge driving his feet, but he makes it to the water and stops, staring at the ripples of the rapids. In his head, another ripple curls out, circular, like a vortex, and his right eye burns. With a grimace, he rubs at it, then folds down to sit on a rock and blows out a breath.

“I don’t remember,” he tells the stream, and scoffs angrily at himself. The words feel helpless, lost, and Obito doesn’t know how to make them anything else. There are only fragments in his head, rough guesses that may or may not have anything to do with reality. They _feel_ right, but there are a thousand reasons why they could be completely wrong, too.

Kakashi will come back. Obito is almost certain of that. He left his pack, after all, and all of his things. He left _Obito_ , and surely he wouldn’t have guarded Obito so carefully this last week if he was just going to abandon him after a kiss. Obito might not have his memories, but even he can tell they're on the run. No other reason could consistently keep them to back roads, keep them wandering as slow as civilians in a direction that’s definitely not towards Konoha. _Two more days_ , Kakashi keeps saying, but he’s said that practically every day now and he hardly even makes an attempt to have it sound believable anymore.

Obito just wishes he could remember what they're running from. The person with the blond hair, who dropped the bomb? Some other group? Konoha itself? All of the above? It’s possible; Obito doesn’t remember anything but the vaguest outlines about Konoha, but even he knows they’d probably be safer in the village than on the move, and it would be harder to get to them. So the odds that they're avoiding Konoha as well are high, but—

Not entirely correct, Obito thinks. There's someone else, too. Or other people, maybe—the blond with the bombs was one of them. An enemy on their mission? Someone unrelated? Kakashi said they saved the Kazekage, after all.

Like a lance of fire, pain splits through Obito's head, makes him gasp. It’s fierce enough to make his vision swim, and he clutches at his skull, grits his teeth to keep in a cry. Fights through it, pushes hard—

The Kazekage is a boy, he thinks. A teenager with red hair who feels familiar, related to someone Obito has met before. They saved him, because he was in danger, because he was going to die. Because there was _someone_ after him, and that someone—

That someone feels like it was _Obito_.

With a low groan, Obito slumps forward, breathing hard, palms braced against his temples. It was him. He was the one after the Kazekage. It was _him_. And somehow, in the midst of that, a bomb fell on top of Kakashi, and the rocks fell as the cave collapsed, and all Obito could do was push Kakashi out of the way.

But no. There weren’t any caves. It was a desert, somewhere wide open and filled with rolling dunes and stands of stone that loomed skyward. One of them shattered, because the bomb didn’t go where it was supposed to, and the stone came flying back at them, too close to disappear, and Kakashi was _right there_ —

Something drips into the dirt between his feet, and Obito groans. When he raises a hand to his face, his nose is bleeding, a steady stream over his lips and down his chin. He wipes it away as best he can, then pinches his nose, tips his head back and tries to ignore the way his mouth taste of iron, the smell of it in the air around him. In his head, the ache is shifting, no longer that lance of agony but a low-level, throbbing ache, like a migraine settling in behind his eyes. The pain makes him nauseous, but he’s the one who pushed, who wanted to remember, and the hurt seems like a decent price to pay for a few more pieces to the puzzle.

He was Kakashi’s enemy. He was working against Kakashi, who was trying to save the Kazekage, but he saw Kakashi in danger and…changed his mind? Stepped in anyway? There's a kicked-in ache to his chest, regret and desperate determination tangled up with the memory, and the ringing thought of _not again **not again** _resounding in his skull like the fading chimes of a warning bell. A cave, and then a desert, and the entire right side of Obito's body feels like an open wound.

He’s saved Kakashi’s life before, and just like this time, it got him hurt. Obito hasn’t questioned his scars—they're shinobi, and shinobi have scars—but…that must be how he got them.

 _You're my best friend,_ and _I'm not going to let anything hurt you again_ , Kakashi told him. Protective. _We haven’t seen each other in a while_. Because Obito was his enemy? Because he left? He wasn’t working for Konoha, before, and Kakashi’s avoidance now means they likely want him brought in, which Kakashi should be doing. But instead, they're wandering the back roads of Fire Country, constantly moving even if Kakashi isn't pushing hard, and Kakashi’s kissing him like they used to be in love, or like he’s wanted to for years now.

It doesn’t make any sense, and Obito's head hurts too much to think about it any more deeply. He slides off the rock to sit on the ground, leans back to brace himself on the stone, and lets go of his nose. The trickle of blood returns, but Obito doesn’t care. He tips his head to rest against the rock, closes his eyes again, and wonders if he’ll ever remember who he used to be.

He wonders, a little desperately, if he actually wants to.

 

 

Faintly trembling fingers pressed against his throat wake him, and he stirs, huffs. Swats Kakashi’s hand away, and says grumpily, “I'm not _dead_ , Bakashi.”

“I couldn’t tell,” Kakashi says, and there's a thread of humor to it but his expression is serious. “What with the blood, and the sleeping, and the way you didn’t move when I called you.”

Blinking, Obito sits up, rubs a hand over his face, and grimaces at the dried blood caked over his chin. “Nosebleed,” he says in explanation, though he likely doesn’t need to.

With a hum that sounds vaguely judgmental, Kakashi offers him a pad of bandages that have been dipped in the stream, and Obito takes them with a muttered thanks, scrubs his face clean as best he can. Kakashi watches him for several seconds, then reaches out, catching Obito's wrist.

“Let me,” he says quietly, and Obito glances up to meet his eye, then opens his fingers, letting Kakashi take the cloth without argument. Kakashi’s touch is far gentler, more careful as he wipes Obito's face, and Obito closes his eyes, letting him work.

“I didn’t know if you were coming back,” he says, and his voice comes out smaller than he intends, almost tentative. And—he hadn’t _thought_ Kakashi was leaving, but he hadn’t known he’d return, either. That edge of uncertainty is only obvious now that it’s been proven wrong, but Obito's heart feels like it’s beating sideways with relief, jarring and sharp enough to make his breath tangle in his throat.

Kakashi’s hands pause, and his silence is heavy enough that Obito opens his eyes again, looking up. He looks right into Kakashi’s stare, for once not hidden as he looks away or veiled by half-glances. He’s looking right back at Obito, steady and set, and the curve of his mouth under his mask is something softer than it should be in the face of Obito's pathetic neediness.

“You're my best friend, Obito,” he says, and it’s faintly ragged in his throat. He twists his free hand into Obito's hair, pulls him in until he can rest their foreheads together, and takes a shaky breath. “I'm not going to leave you.”

Just for an instant, Obito thinks he sees the desert again, the sand dunes, the blue sky above and the blond high up on a white shape. Thinks he feels the pain, tearing, awful, and hands on him, quick but clinical. They turned him over, he remembers, rolled him onto his back, and then there was a breath, a choked sound. Fingers on his face, slippery with all the blood that was sheeting down his skin, and then—

A mask, falling away. Kakashi, leaning over him with a world in his mismatched eyes, whispering, _Obito?_ like he didn’t know whether it was a prayer or a curse.

“Not unless you get stupid around rocks again,” Obito says, tries to make it a joke even though the words fall heavy from his tongue. “Really, Bakashi, didn’t you learn the first time?”

Kakashi’s laugh is choked, almost broken. He wraps his arms around Obito's neck, practically falls into his lap, and Obito hugs him in return, splays his hands over Kakashi’s lean back and holds him close. His eyes feel hot, and he presses his face to Kakashi’s shoulder to hide it, breathing in the warm sunlight and leaf smell of him.

“Are you crying, Obito?” Kakashi asks, and there's a lilt to it that could be teasing or could be tears of his own, and Obito can't tell.

“Idiot,” Obito mutters, and just for that he rubs his nose into Kakashi’s shirt, hoping Kakashi missed some blood and that it will stain. “There's just something in my eyes, that’s all.”

 

 

Kakashi doesn’t object to climbing back in through the window, rather than going through the inn proper. He doesn’t even question it, just follows, and says as he lands on the floor, “I got something for you.”

Obito blinks, startled, and looks from Kakashi to the bed. There's a package there, wrapped in cloth, and he _knows_ it wasn’t there when he left. Squinting suspiciously, he looks from it back to Kakashi, and asks, “You _got_ me something?”

Kakashi gives him a pout that tries for wounded. “So much suspicion when I try to do something nice for you,” he protests.

With a roll of his eyes, Obito picks it up, weighing it carefully. There's a tag hanging from one corner, and when he checks it, it’s easy enough to recognize the sign of the seamstress they passed earlier.

“Are you really that tired of me wearing your clothes?” he asks dryly.

Kakashi snorts, but he slides a hand over Obito's where it rests on the cloth, slots their fingers together and squeezes gently. “You said you wanted a nice dinner,” he says. “I thought we could go out.”

It’s not like there's another option of they want a hot meal, but the words still settle heavy and hot in Obito's stomach, and he has to swallow. “If it’s a miniskirt or something, I'm going to drown you in the river,” he threatens, but can't manage to sound like he means it.

Kakashi has the gall to smile at him, quick and warm. “I think we’ve seen your track record with letting me die, Obito,” he returns, and leans in. Even through the mask, his lips are soft, and Obito's breath catches as Kakashi’s mouth grazes his cheek, a line of heat across his skin. Then Kakashi is gone again, the door of the room falling shut behind him with a quiet click.

Obito's face is hot, and his chest feels like someone filled it with sunlight. He buries his face in the cloth, trying not to hyperventilate, and laughs because he can't do anything else.

 

 

The only real restaurant in town is two buildings down from the inn, a narrow place divided into tiny private rooms. Somehow that makes the heat in Obito's stomach even worse than the hand Kakashi keeps on his back as he guides him in.

“Grey is a good color on you,” Kakashi says, once the girl who showed them in has carefully closed the door behind herself.

Obito tugs on the hem of the sleeve, trying not to feel awkward. Wearing a yukata instead of a shinobi’s clothes is unspeakably strange, like it’s something he hasn’t done in years. But—that can't be right, not really. “Isn't grey your family’s color,” he asks distractedly, and has the pleasure of seeing Kakashi freeze, wide-eyed and caught. Startled, Obito stares back, mouth open as he gropes for words. Then, sharply, he snaps his mouth shut, opens it again, and demands, “ _Really_ , Bakashi?”

Tellingly, Kakashi tugs his mask up just a little higher, but there's a trace of red on his face, and he very determinedly isn't looking at Obito. “The salmon looks good,” he says pointedly, straightening the menu with a precision that’s clearly a deflection.

Obito's own cheeks are a little hot, and he looks away, at a painting of irises by a riverbed. “Idiot,” he mutters, but his fingers find the cloth of the yukata again, and the carefully painted grasses around the hem, silvered by the full moon, suddenly seem more meaningful. There's no scarecrow in the field, but Obito is pretty sure Kakashi found the next best thing.

“It’s not nice to call your date names, you know,” Kakashi informs him archly, though he’s still not looking right at Obito.

 _Date_. Obito supposes that it is, though he doesn’t have anything to compare it to. This feels…new, beyond even the shattered state of his memory. New but welcome, and his heart is beating a little too hard, a little too fast. He’s almost painfully aware of every inch of his own body, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s like every part of him is attuned to Kakashi where he sits across the table, hair falling in his face as he studies the menu, and Obito has to swallow and look down at his own. He needs…a drink. Possibly two. But that will mean pouring sake for Kakashi, and watching Kakashi pour sake for him while he’s sitting here wearing Kakashi’s clan colors. And that feels like too much, at the same time as Obito wants it desperately.

The hiss of the door sliding open signals the return of the waitress, carrying a tray with cups, and Obito tries very hard not to look at Kakashi and still fails miserably.

This time, Kakashi is looking back, and he smiles at Obito from across the table. It makes Obito's heart turn over in his chest, and the careful slide of Kakashi’s fingers over his when the girl turns to leave is like the catch halfway through an endless fall.

 

 

In the silence when they rise, Obito doesn’t bother to ask where they’re going, and Kakashi doesn’t try to insist they're still two days from Konoha. The quiet is a warm thing, soft like silk, and Kakashi’s eyes linger on Obito for a long, long moment before he turns away to dress. Obito has a harder time pulling his gaze away, especially when he can see the expanse of Kakashi’s scarred back in the dawn light, but he finally turns to his own clothes, pulling the yukata back on without hesitation. He still can't touch his chakra for more than a moment or two without nausea crashing over him in a wave, and they haven’t encountered anyone, friend or foe, along the road. He doesn’t need to dress like a shinobi. Not now.

It’s worth it, too, for the look on Kakashi’s face when he turns around, the sweep of his gaze over Obito. He doesn’t linger, but grips Obito's arm again, tugs him towards the door.

With a flicker of madness, or maybe a surge of courage, Obito tugs his arm away, and when Kakashi freezes, uncertain, he slots their fingers together and grips Kakashi’s hand instead.

Kakashi looks down at their hands, then back up at him, and he doesn’t smile. There's something soft in his face, though, and he shoulders his pack, steps out into the hall and pulls Obito with him. The sound of the door closing feels final, the end of something, but—

Maybe this place is just a catalyst, and once the energy needed to start the process is spent, it’s still a new beginning on the other side.

“There's a ravine ahead,” Kakashi says, when they're on the road and have passed out of the village, “and another town on the other side.”

It seems like it will be too early to stop—the day has only just passed into morning, and there are hours of daylight left. Obito hesitates, glancing at Kakashi and then ahead of them, trying to figure to the reasoning, but Kakashi’s gaze is on the sky again, scanning the horizon, and Obito can't see any other clues.

“You're getting spoiled, sleeping in a bed on a mission,” he jokes, and Kakashi’s smile doesn’t reach his eye.

“A little bit of luxury never hurt anyone, Obito,” he returns, and Obito wants to call bullshit—instinctive, at this point—but before he can Kakashi sucks in a sharp breath and _growls_.

Obito is caught off guard, and when Kakashi leaps back, the earth splitting beneath his feet, Obito's grip is too loose. His hand slips right out of Kakashi’s grasp, and he feels hands like shackles close around his ankles. There's a _wrench_ , jarring, rattling his bones, and he shouts, reaching out, grabbing for chakra, for Kakashi.

Somewhere very far away, he thinks he hears Kakashi cry out in return, but then darkness swallows him, full of devouring green and blinding pain and low, rough, strangling laughter.

The last thing Obito feels is the earth closing over his head, and he thinks desperately _not again_ before everything is gone.

 

 

“You had us worried,” a voice laughs, right in Obito's ear, and he comes fully awake with a cry, scrambling back before he even has his eyes open. His shoulders hit a wall, and he pulls up short, staring at the green-haired man who looks mildly startled by his response. He blinks at Obito, and Obito stares back, and after a long moment the man huffs.

“We should have guessed you went off with the Hatake brat,” he says, laughing, and grins to show unnervingly sharp teeth. “Did he give you anything on the Kyuubi jinchuuriki? Or the Ichibi jinchuuriki?”

Obito takes a breath, lifts his head. He’s somewhere underground, somewhere dark. A room, small, with a bed and a wardrobe and a table with a few bottles of nail polish on it. Dark blue, Obito thinks, and curls his hands into fists as something like fear rises in an inexorable tide.

“Who are you?” he asks, because there isn't a single thing in his head that looks like _this_.

For a moment, the man looks like he’s at a loss for words. Then, slowly, his eyes narrow, and he lashes out in a sudden surge of motion. Branches _burst_ from his fingertips, and Obito yelps, throws himself to the side, rolls and comes to his feet. Too slow—there are more branches in front of him, and when he dives away one slices across his shoulder, tearing skin. He looks desperately for the door as he leaps the bed, drops low, rises—

A wave of sharp-tipped branches crash towards him, and there's no way to avoid them, no opportunity to get away. Obito throws himself back against the wall with a cry, and—

The branches stop a hair’s breadth from his chest.

“What did you _do_?” the man snarls, and the branches fall away, slide back under his skin. He looms, like a shadow, like something that doesn’t quite have defined edges, and the darkness is bleeding out of him to spread across the room. “We were so _close_! How could you have _ruined it_?”

Obito's head is full of broken glass and blood and red red moons, and he chokes on a breath, gags on the taste of iron. Fisting his hands in his hair, he slides down the wall to curl up on the floor, and whispers, “I don’t _know_.”

It’s a lie. He knows what he did. He saved Kakashi, and got hurt, and even if he had the choice to make again he’d choose saving Kakashi a hundred thousand times over.

The man laughs, and Obito has never heard a more threatening sound. “Maybe once you think about it, the answer will come to you,” he croons, falsely sweet as he leans over Obito, and he smells like old blood and still water and dying things. Obito keeps his eyes closed, his head bent, but he nods without speaking, the words clogging up his throat, and the man seems to take that as all the agreement he needs. There are steps, the click of a door opening, and he says, “He’s confused, Kisame. Watch him so he doesn’t hurt himself.”

 _So I don’t escape_ , Obito translates that to, sardonic, and turns his head just enough to see the big man who steps in, broad and blue-skinned and watching him with something that’s almost like concern on his face.

“Hey, Boss,” he says, and it’s cheerful despite his stature, despite the massive sword that he leans near the door. The concern splits into a grin half a second later, and he steps around the deep trenches the branches carved into the floor, comes around to crouch in front of Obito. Obito's sure he makes the most pathetic picture imaginable, a grown man curled like a child on the floor, arms practically over his head like he wants to hide from the monsters around him. Kisame stares at him for a second, then chuckles softly and sits down next to him, back to the wall, his legs crossed under himself.

“One of those days, huh?” he jokes, but his eyes are serious, and he doesn’t try to touch Obito, just leans back and lifts his eyes to the ceiling.

“Yeah,” Obito agrees, and his laugh tears at his throat, raw and ragged. “One of those _weeks_.”

Kisame chuckles, but it sounds like sympathy. His gaze falls back to Obito, curious more than anything, and he says, “Can't say I've ever seen you out of uniform before, Boss.”

 _Boss_. Because of course he wasn’t just working against Kakashi, he was the _leader_. Obito closes his eyes, tugging at his hair in self-recrimination, and takes a shaky breath. “I don’t remember anything,” he says, jagged around the edges like the words can draw blood, and Kisame inhales sharply, shoulders going back like he wants to step away. His eyes bore into Obito, but Obito ignores the gaze, tugs at his hair again and looks away, pulling his legs up closer to his chest.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and the curse feels automatic, easy. “ _Fuck_ ,” he snarls, and it’s like the whiteness in his mind is breaking, shattering but there's nothing useful behind it. Only rage, as dark and hot as poison, bubbling up like magma from beneath the earth. He hisses out a breath, and his head is _throbbing_ , a pulsating, pounding ache that warps his vision, makes the world swim around him.

“Hey,” Kisame says, and he sounds unaffected, but he’s still watching Obito carefully. “Zetsu found you, Boss. He’ll fix you, too.”

Obito thinks of holding Kakashi’s hand in the restaurant, just the tips of their fingers laced. Thinks of last night, sharing a bed, the warm, overwhelming intimacy of being pressed close together in the dark, sharing a pillow as the moon rose. The grey of the yukata is stark against his right side’s dead-white skin, but it’s a warm shade, kind. Obito is wrapped in Kakashi’s colors, and he closes his eyes, laughs.

“What if I don’t want to be fixed?” he challenges, because the anger simmering up inside of him is going to eat him alive once he stops trying to contain it. Is this what he’s always like? Is this why he was Kakashi’s enemy?

But, even like this, he chose to save Kakashi. He always will, and he has to keep believing that.

For a long moment, Kisame doesn’t answer. Then, carefully, he reaches out, rests one big hand on Obito's shoulder and squeezes gently. “It’s a lie, though, this life you're in right now,” he tells him. “You don’t remember who you are.”

It doesn’t _matter_ , though. Obito remembers the important things. He remembers watching Kakashi, the lonely line of his shoulders. Remembers saving him, too, both times he almost died. Remembers that he did it again, even as enemies. He remembers the heat of Kakashi’s mouth, and the way he kisses, like Obito is all he’s ever thought about.

What else matters, in the face of that?

There's a soft sigh, a shift. Kisame rummages in one of his pockets for a moment, then comes up with a square of fabric and offers it to Obito. “Your nose is bleeding, Boss,” he says gently, and Obito hesitates, but takes the cloth. His head hurts, he thinks, and when Kisame's hand goes from resting on his arm to sliding over his shoulder, he doesn’t fight the pull. Kisame guides him in to rest against his side, and Obito takes the warmth gratefully. There's a bone-deep shiver starting, something that has nothing to do with cold and everything to do with the fury that’s bottled up inside of him.

It would be so much easier to say he doesn’t understand the anger, that it feels foreign, but—that’s a lie, too. It’s another piece of him, as familiar as his own name, and it’s _useful_. Obito gathers it up tight, twists it around himself like a blanket, like a shroud. He breathes, and thinks, and the edge of fury simmers away behind each thought, pushing it higher, further, faster as he tries to put the pieces together.

 

 

The medic they call for is a small, slim redhead who looks like a teenager and talks like someone far older. Looking at him, Obito sees flashes of the Kazekage Kakashi saved, and—this is the man he was thinking of, before, who was similar. He doesn’t say as much, but keeps his mouth shut, watching as the redhead lets himself into the room. His expression is deeply annoyed, and there's a long cut down his side that shows wood instead of flesh.

“Sasori,” Kisame says cheerfully, rising to his feet. “No luck getting back into Suna?”

“That old hag was prepared for my attempt,” Sasori says bitterly, but he turns to look Obito over, eyes narrowing. “Who is this?”

Kisame chuckles, patting the wrapped blade of his sword. “Not really important,” he says dismissively, and Obito flicks him a careful glance, then swallows down whatever reaction he wants to have. That’s…interesting. Important, potentially. Kisame knows who he is, and calls him _boss_ , and Zetsu treats him like an equal, but Sasori has very clearly never met him before.

Sasori gives Kisame a disbelieving look, then makes a disgusted sound and pushes forward. “On the bed,” he tells Obito shortly. “Sitting.” Then, without so much as a glance at Kisame he demands, “What is it you want me to fix?”

“He lost his memories,” Kisame says easily, but his eyes are sharp as he watches Obito settle on the edge of the mattress. “And his nose keeps bleeding.”

“If you called me in to fix a concussion, I'm going to turn you into a puppet,” Sasori says spitefully, but green flickers around his hands, and he places them on either side of Obito's head, frowning. Obito flinches, sucking in a sharp breath, and his vision swims the same way it does when tries to reach for his own chakra. He gags, and Sasori takes a prompt step to the side and pulls his hands away. Reaching down, he grabs Obito's left arm, hauls it up—

Obito yelps as a razor-thin blade splits the skin, and Kisame makes a loud sound of protest, reaching out to grab Sasori’s arm. With a huff of irritation, Sasori swats his hand away, then lifts Obito's arm up to the light and says, “You heal almost instantly.”

Blinking, Obito looks at what’s caught Sasori’s attention, and pauses. The cut Sasori made is already healing, closing on its own like time is skipping ahead in that one particular spot. Sasori’s frown deepens, and he turns Obito's arm to get a better look at the cut, then drops it. His hands go back to Obito's head, this time without medical chakra, and he tips Obito's head to the side, brushing his hair away.

“Did you hit your head?” he asks distractedly, and Obito winces when his thumb finds a particular sensitive spot and pushes down.

“There was an explosion,” he says. “Near some rocks. One piece hit me in the chest, but—I don’t remember. My head was bleeding.”

Sasori’s expression is slipping into intrigued, losing the edge of impatience. “You must have cracked your skull open,” he says. “Literally. There's something lodged in your brain, and your body healed around it as best it could.”

Obito swallows hard, faintly nauseous just from the thought. There was stone everywhere, like shrapnel, and he’d been trying to get Kakashi out of the way, or trying to get the shrapnel out of Kakashi’s way—

“Can you get it out?” Kisame asks, quiet, intent.

Green flickers around Sasori’s fingertips, enough of a warning for Obito to brace himself against the lance of pain and vertigo that comes with the touch of chakra. “Do you need him alive afterwards?” Sasori asks sarcastically. “Because if you don’t, I most certainly can. But if you want his brain intact, as I assume you do, it will be significantly harder.”

“He’s got something in there right now,” Kisame protests. “How can getting it out be worse?”

Sasori rolls his eyes. “It’s a miracle it didn’t kill him going in. To get it out I’ll have to cut his head open again, find it, and extract it, all while his body constantly tries to heal him. If anything even jars the shard a little, he’ll be an interesting corpse before even the best medic-nin could save him.”

Kisame looks faintly worried, casting a glance from Sasori to Obito and then hesitating. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he says abruptly. “Stay here until I get back.”

“I'm not your _servant_ ,” Sasori says sharply, but the door is already swinging shut behind Kisame, and he lets out an aggrieved breath, folding his arms over his chest. “There is no other person even _vaguely_ qualified in this swamp,” he says derisively. “Unless they want Kakuzu to try and _thread_ your brain back together.”

Obito doesn’t have the first clue what that’s supposed to mean, so he doesn’t answer, just glances at the door. “It would be safer to leave it in, right?” he asks, and—maybe it’s hopeful. Maybe he grabs, in that moment, onto the excuse that he’ll never have to remember anything, and can go back to Kakashi, leave all of this behind.

Sasori pauses, considering. “No,” he admits grudgingly, after a long moment. “Clearly its presence is already having adverse effects on you, unless you always react this way to chakra. Eventually, the thing could move and kill you instantly, on its own or because you bump your head. Removing it is the only option.” He pauses again, then tips his head. “With your level of healing, your brain will repair itself almost immediately. The memory loss will likely be gone as soon as the debris is removed.”

That’s hardly a positive. Obito closes his eyes, breathes out. Wonders, vaguely, if he can get up and leave and go back to Kakashi right now. Surely even if there's a time limit, a few days, a few months, a few _years_ spent how he wants to spend them is worth more than an operation that has slim chances of success.

But, of course, leaving means he has to get _out_ , past Sasori and Kisame and Zetsu, worst of all. Without chakra, with what might as well be an explosive tag in his head, waiting to go off, and with no idea where he is or where Kakashi is, either.

“Where are we?” he asks quietly.

Sasori gives him a narrow look. “In the Mountains’ Graveyard,” he says. “Half a day’s travel north of the Kusa border. This is Akatsuki’s main base.”

 _Akatsuki_. The name jars through Obito, sharp, cleaving edges and a slash of pain that drives a rough gasp from his throat, but—he remembers. Vaguely, distantly, but—faces. A statue. People gathered, distant from him but close enough to overhear, and he’d stayed to watch them meet.

When his breathing evens out, Sasori is watching him narrowly. “Memories are accompanied by pain?” he asks.

Obito nods, trying not to think that he has a piece of _rock_ stuck in his brain, causing this. “Chakra too,” he says.

Sasori hums. “Your own, as well as other people’s? Interesting.” He considers Obito for a long moment, frowning, and then asks, “May I have your body for a puppet if you die during surgery?”

There's a sketchy deal if Obito has ever heard one. He rolls his eyes pointedly, and says, “You can have it if I die _after_ the surgery. I’ll tell Kisame to burn my body if I die on the table.”

Sasori scowls, but there's a trace of grudging respect to it as well. “You’ll be of the most use with your brain intact,” he allows, and then asks, “Who are you to Kisame?”

Obito laughs, rough and sardonic. “No fucking clue.”

The faintest trace of humor touches Sasori’s mouth. “As I should have predicted,” he admits, then glances at the door, expression turning calculating. “You are a prisoner.”

“I am now, yeah,” Obito say, grimly amused. “Or something like that.” He leans back on one hand, casting his own look over Sasori, and says, “And you're a puppet.”

The face Sasori makes is disgusted. “I am,” he agrees. “It is the perfect body, long-lasting and immortal. But my hag of a grandmother and her new _friend_ managed to injure me regardless.”

He must have been one of the ones trying to kill the Kazekage, Obito thinks. “Is there…a blond?” he asks. “With bombs?”

There's a second of startled silence. “ _Deidara_ is responsible for your condition?” Sasori asks, and there's something deeply amused in the words. “Did he miss so badly that he hit one of the stone formations?”

Obito hesitates. That sounds right, but at the same time, it doesn’t. The bomb wasn’t meant for him, and Obito moved it, but—

The bomb went off, and then the next thing he knew Kakashi was kneeling over him, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

With a groan, he tips forward, gripping his head, and braces his elbows on his knees as he tries to breath through the redoubling ache. “Fuck,” he mutters, because this hurts _more_. It’s been getting worse, and knowing the cause now makes him twitchy at the thought of that, makes him want to claw his own head open to pull the splinter out.

A green-glowing touch skims his temple, and he gags as his stomach lurches. A second later, though, the pain recedes, and he lets out a relieved groan.

“Your brain is trying to heal around the splinter,” Sasori tells him, and his eyes are clinical, cold, but his fingers are light on Obito's head as he tips it to the side again. “You likely have little time before it moves fatally.”

Obito closes his eyes, trying to calculate, trying to _think_. “What could convince you to take it out right now, before Kisame and Zetsu get back?” he asks. “Information?”

There's a pause, suspicious but also intrigued. “I doubt there is much information you have that I do not,” Sasori finally says, as dry as dust. Then, before Obito can says anything, he adds, “However, if it were sufficiently intriguing, I would consider attempting the operation without the knowledge of anyone else in the base.”

Carefully worded. Clearly, Sasori is used to making deals. “Kisame calls me _boss_ ,” he says, and looks up to meet Sasori’s widening eyes. “And Zetsu is the one behind everything. He told me I’d ruined _their_ plan when he realized I couldn’t remember anything.”

Sasori pauses, processing. “That is…certainly interesting,” he allows, and frowns. “He claimed to be a former Kusa nin, but…I have never found evidence that he existed there.”

Obito doesn’t say anything, just waits. There's tension coiling up his spine, winding tighter, but he stays silent as Sasori mulls it over. Kisame is going to return at some point, probably too soon, and if Zetsu is with him, if Sasori doesn’t at least help him get out of the base—

“Pein has set himself up as our leader, and convincingly enough that I never suspected differently,” Sasori finally says, and smiles, thin and dangerous. “I am Akatsuki’s intelligence officer, and they managed to fool me entirely. This gives me entirely new avenues to explore. Very well, you have a deal.”

Obito is careful to keep his sigh of relief internal, but he rises to his feet, opens his mouth—

“Tonight, not now,” Sasori tells him sharply. “I need time to prepare, and I will convince them that I need to have you in observation for twenty-four hours before I begin the operation. We will be finished before they think to check again.”

The idea of waiting grates, but Obito nods, sinks back to the bed. “I’ll tell you whatever else I know if my memory really does come back,” he promises.

Sasori inclines his head, and his smile is sly and full of wicked humor. “I will make sure you do,” he agrees.

 

 

Kisame doesn’t even think to question Sasori, and Obito only catches a vague glimpse of Zetsu at the edge of his vision as he’s escorted down to Sasori’s lab. It’s definitely not a medical lab, looks more like a woodworking shop crossed with a funeral home, but there's one operating table set up in the corner, a bed that very noticeably has shackles and chains attached to it nearby.

“Just for now,” Kisame promises Obito, gripping his shoulder tightly even though Obito isn't fighting, and hasn’t tried to get away. Obito gives him a dark look, and Kisame chuckles sheepishly, then picks him up right up off his feet like he weighs as much as a child. Obito strangles a shout, lashes out on instinct, but it’s like kicking a brick wall, and gets about as much reaction from Kisame. He laughs, and swings Obito up—

“ _Careful_ ,” Sasori snaps. “I don’t know how easily the shard may shift.”

Comically, Kisame freezes, eyes wide, and then very carefully, very slowly lowers Obito onto the bed. “Sorry,” he says apologetically. “When we spar you never mind me tossing you around.”

Obito is still trying to recover from the nauseating lurch of his vision spinning, but he waves off the words. “That sounds like me,” he allows, and Kisame squeezes his shoulder.

“You’ll be okay,” he promises, and there's a fervent note to his voice, something that says he won't accept any other outcome. “There are a lot of plans coming together, and we need you in one piece.”

A flicker of guilt rises, something deep-seated and dark. Obito doesn’t know Kisame, but—there might be something familiar about him. Or maybe Obito just wants there to be, because it’s easier to put his guilt down to familiarity than to think it’s because he’s planning his escape even though Kisame comforted him in his room, has been kind to him since.

“Yeah,” he says, and closes his eyes as Kisame's big hands lift his arms one after the other, carefully buckling the shackles around his wrists. They're padded, but tight enough that Obito probably couldn’t get out on his own. Not without a lot of help and some chakra, at the very least. Kisame chains his ankles as well before stepping back, and he glances over at Sasori, who’s watching with an impatient expression.

“Can he eat?” he asks. “I can bring down a tray—”

“No food for twenty-four hours before the operation,” Sasori interrupts sharply, “and no water for twelve. I will see to it that he remains hydrated, and he can eat _if_ he survives.”

Kisame rubs the back of his head. “I guess you do know what you're doing,” he jokes, and when Sasori levels a dark expression at him, he raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry.” Leaning over, he pats Obito's knee, then gives him a grin full of teeth and says, “See you tomorrow evening, Tobi.”

 _Tobi_ , Obito thinks, and a spike of pain almost drives a cry past his teeth. His vision flickers with white dots, and the noise that escapes him is unflatteringly close to a whimper. With a sound of alarm, Kisame pulls back, but before he can say anything Sasori cuts in.

“If you’ve finished making my job harder, the door is there,” he says bitingly.

Just for a moment, there's something dangerous in Kisame's eyes, hungry and angry and ready to fight, but he buries it half a second later, turns. “I think I can find it,” he says cheerfully, and waves over his shoulder as he heads out. “Good luck.”

Sasori waits until the door has closed, then another full minute. It’s only then that he reaches out, tapping a seal carved into the wall, and lets chakra flicker and slide across the walls to pool in front of the door. “That will keep out anyone who thinks to enter,” he says. “Even Zetsu. You’re prepared?”

“Yes,” Obito lies. He sits up as much as the chains will allow, and asks, “How long?”

“Until I can begin? An hour. Until the operation is finished? There's no way of knowing.” Sasori pauses, assessing, and then says, “You didn’t tell Kisame to burn your body.”

Obito smiles wryly, settling back down. “You're a spymaster. I bet you want to know what people have been hiding from you even more than you want another puppet.”

The curl of Sasori’s lips might almost be a smile. “A steep wager.”

“It seems like I'm making a lot of those today,” Obito retorts, and Sasori snorts. He turns on a bright light over the table, then turns to start pulling out tools.

“You will have to be unconscious for the operation, given your reaction to chakra,” he warns. “And with your rate of healing, I will have to use a toxin to put you under. I have used it on near-immortals before, but there won't be an opportunity to assess the risks beforehand.”

More games of chance with his life. Obito breathes out, closing his eyes. Thinks of waking up with Kakashi’s head on his shoulder, the weight of his body next to him, and says dryly, “If I get out of this alive, I'm going to take up poker.”

“If you get out of this alive, you will have used all your luck surviving,” is Sasori’s less-than-comforting assessment, but the clink of metal and the movement of his hands is perfectly steady. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Doctor’s orders?” Obito jokes.

“Puppeteer’s,” Sasori corrects, and when he approaches Obito's side he’s carrying a vial. “Drink.”

Obito doesn’t bother to ask what’s in it. He tosses it back, then closes his eyes and waits for the poison to do its job.

This will get him back to Kakashi. It has to.

 

 

“Do I even want to know where you’ve been?” Tsunade demands the moment Kakashi drags himself into her office. “The Kazekage rescue teams came back without you, you were _assumed dead_ for a week and a half—”

“Hokage-sama, _please_ ,” Kakashi interrupts, and he wouldn’t normally, because Tsunade is one of the few people on earth he’d still follow blindly, but he hasn’t slept in two days, crossed most of Fire Country faster than should be possible, looks and feels like he was dragged through a forest backwards on his face. For the second time he’s seen Obito slip away from him, disappear into darkness and collapsing stone, and this time—

The first time it meant everything to him, but this time, somehow, it means even more.

There must be something on his face, in his eyes, because Tsunade stops. She stares at him for a long moment, eyes hard, and then rises from her chair. With brisk steps she crosses to a chest along one wall, hauls it open, and pulls a small cloth bag from inside. As she passes back towards her desk, she shakes out three white pills and shoves them into Kakashi’s hand.

“Chakra pills,” she says shortly. “Orochimaru made them during the Second War. The crash hurts, but they’ll keep you going until then.”

Kakashi doesn’t need to know more. He swallows them, then catches his breath at the unpleasant prickling rush that washes through his veins. On the other side of it, though, he does feel marginally better, at least able to open his eyes and stand upright at the same time. He shakes himself, like a dog emerging from water—

(Like Obito emerging from the water, scarred, patchwork skin and dark hair and broad shoulders, the fighting-lean line of his body as he turned, and Kakashi had to look away because he was a _coward_ —)

“Kakashi?” Tsunade's voice is still firm, but softer now, easier. “What happened?”

Kakashi can't find the words. Wants to say _my old teammate is alive_. Wants to say _I unmasked one of the attackers_. Wants to say _one of them saved my life_. But it’s all true, and at the same time none of it is.

“Deidara of Iwa tried to drop a bomb on my head,” he finally settles on. “And one of the Akatsuki members saw and apparently had a change of heart.”

He might never recover from the shock of removing the broken orange mask, expecting to find a face from the Bingo Book, and instead seeing Obito lying there, broken and bleeding and looking up at him with dazed-dark eyes. His lips had parted, framed Kakashi’s name, and he’d let out a breath that rattled like a death knell. With a chunk of his skull missing, half of his chest carved out, Kakashi had been so certain that it was the end for him, that he’d saved Kakashi only to die _again_ , but—

He’d healed. Slowly, not all the way, but he had, and Kakashi had though, half-wild, half-mad, that he couldn’t let anyone find them. That he couldn’t give Obito up, not to Konoha and not to the other members of Akatsuki. The rest of the team had already been pushing Akatsuki back, Deidara unsteady in the wake of Obito redirecting his bombs, Sasori off balance because of his grandmother and Sakura facing him down, and so Kakashi had just…left.

Obito saved his life twice over. Of course Kakashi was going to repay that debt.

“A change of heart?” Tsunade repeats, deeply skeptical. She looks Kakashi over from head to toe, mouth twisting, and then asks, “Is this Akatsuki member why you disappeared?”

“I was waiting for him to get better,” Kakashi says, and it’s not quite a confession. A dare, maybe, as he lifts his chin. “He used to be a Konoha shinobi.”

Brown eyes widen, and Tsunade pauses. “Akatsuki took him back before he could heal,” she says, and Kakashi has never been so grateful for her ability to read people.

He nods, meets her gaze, and says, “I need a tracking team. I'm going to get him back.”

It’s easy enough, right now, to ignore the knowledge that this is going to be a futile mission, that there's no way to track someone who can disappear underground and travel without ever breaking the surface, even carrying another person along with them. He _needs_ to find Obito, who doesn’t even remember who he is, who can't tell friend from enemy or explain to Akatsuki why he rescued Kakashi. They could take it as treachery, kill him. They could do _anything_ to him, and Obito can't even use chakra right now. There's no way he’ll be able to escape.

“ _Please_ , Hokage-sama,” he says, and the words weigh in his mouth like lead. Not what he would normally say, nothing close to how he would normally ask for this mission, but—

It’s Obito. Obito is alive. Obito survived Kannabi Bridge, and he looks at Kakashi like Kakashi is something bright instead of something craven and broken, and Kakashi made a promise to Obito, to himself. He doesn’t leave his comrades behind, and he won't ever leave Obito behind.

Tsunade's mouth tightens, and she hesitates. Her eyes flicker to the portraits of her predecessors, her family, where they rest on the walls, and after a long, long moment she sighs.

“A Konoha shinobi,” she repeats, just a little wry. “Do I want to know who?”

Kakashi doesn’t say anything. Saving his life doesn’t mean much, not in the scheme of things, not when Kakashi took one look at him and felt all the pieces fall together. And yet—

“An Uchiha,” he says softly, and Tsunade freezes. He can see she’s having the same thoughts he did—about the Kyuubi, about the Massacre, about someone kidnapping jinchuuriki. But if this really is a change of heart, if it wasn’t just another plot—and it couldn’t have been, _couldn’t_ have been, Kakashi is sure of that much—maybe there's a chance. Kakashi’s shinobi enough to know the worth of an enemy who changes allegiances, even after fighting on the other side. Obito must have done terrible things, but if he leaves Akatsuki, if they can get him back, that’s the start of a new path.

A soft breath and Tsunade nods. “Who do you want?” she asks.

“Hana and Anko,” Kakashi says instantly, because he spent the whole dragging trek home to Konoha planning out everything. “And Shizune, if you can spare her.”

“Two poison users, three trackers, two medics, and two shinobi with summons.” Tsunade raises a brow, but she looks considering. “All right. You have your mission.”

Kakashi would kiss her if he didn’t think a broken nose would be counterproductive to rescuing Obito. With a breath of relief, he nods and steps back, heads for the door without hesitation. It’s already been too long, and every second he can shave off their return time is precious.

“Kakashi,” Tsunade says, just as he reaches for the latch. “Don’t take any stupid risks. Not for him.”

Kakashi thinks of Obito on the ground blood covering half of his face and all of his chest, staring up at Kakashi with a look that wasn’t even touched with regret. Something bright, instead, like saving Kakashi was all the victory he needed.

“No stupid risks. Of course, Hokage-sama,” he repeats obediently, and doesn’t mean a word of it.

 

 

“What even _is_ this guy?” Hana demands, and she actually has a hand clamped over her nose. The Haimaru brothers don’t look all that much better; one of them keeps pawing at his nose, and a second is in the middle of a sneezing fit.

“He looks like a Venus flytrap,” Kakashi says, tipping one shoulder in an unconcerned shrug that he definitely doesn’t feel. “And he can travel underground.”

Anko laughs, crouched over the torn earth that Obito disappeared into. She peers down into the hole, tongue flickering out, and then waves a hand at Shizune. “Hey, would you hold this for a sec?”

Shizune blinks, but steps in closer. “Hold what?” she asks, already reaching out.

Anko grabs her hand. “This!” she says cheerfully, and promptly uses Shizune to brace herself as she stuffs her head and shoulders down into the hole.

Kakashi can't help a faint smile, even if something in his chest curls painfully. Turning away, he casts an eye over his own pack, spread out and doing a wide sweep of the area. None of them seem to have found anything yet, and Kakashi was desperately, idiotically hopeful that even though the man who grabbed Obito traveled underground they would be able to pick up a trail _somehow_. There's no other way to find him; Akatsuki’s location is still a secret, and Jiraiya hasn’t found anything relating to their movements recently. If they can't pick up a trail, Obito may as well have vanished into thin air.

“For someone so smelly, you’d think he would be easier to find,” Hana says, and nudges him with her shoulder as she passes. It’s not an aggressive touch; comforting, if anything, and Kakashi hasn’t surrounded himself with Inuzuka and their casual pack-language in a long time, but it still makes the breath shudder from his lungs, a simple reminder that he isn't out here alone.

“We’ll find him,” he says, and Hana grins, all teeth.

“Of course we will,” she says brazenly, and when one of the Haimaru brother yips she trots over to him, goes down on her knees next to him as he paws at the ground.

Shizune, still hanging on to Anko's hand as she roots around underground and trying very obviously not to look at Anko’s ass, clears her throat and glances at Kakashi. “Do you know if they traveled a full distance this way?” she asks, tipping her head at the hole. “It doesn’t seem like it would be the best way to transport another person, especially someone injured.”

“I don’t think they expected him to be injured,” Kakashi says, because it’s not as though amnesia leaves an outside mark, and Obito was otherwise mostly healed. The spot on his chest was still raw, but repairing itself in a way that Kakashi has only ever seen in Kushina and Naruto.

Shizune frowns. “It still doesn’t seem very practical,” she offers.

That’s true. Kakashi assumes that tunneling like a rat isn't anywhere close to as easy as using something like the Hiraishin, or even a shunshin, and with Obito as an unconscious or struggling weight. He’ll expand the perimeter another hundred meters, see if he or Hana can find any—

With a squeak, Shizune jumps, then immediately steps back and pulls Anko up with her. Anko surfaces with a curse, shaking dirt out of her hair, and says triumphantly, “I think I got it!”

Kakashi’s heart skips. “Anko?” he demands.

“He was using chakra to travel,” she says, and a long white snake as thick around as Kakashi’s forearm slithers up out of the hole after her. “Me an’ Kōbai can follow the traces, since being underground kept them fresh.”

Kakashi had been desperately hoping for something like this when he chose Anko. Snakes don’t track the same way as dogs, after all, and more options are always a good thing. “Good,” he says. “Then take the lead from here.”

“Yes sir!” Anko says, giving him a cheeky salute, and leans down. The snake raises its head, bumping its snout into her cheek, and Anko giggles. She rises, and the snake sets off, winding a path off the road and into the trees with Anko right beside it.

Whistling for his pack, Kakashi catches Hana's eye and tips his head, and a moment later she’s loping up, her ninken around her. “Nothing in our direction,” she reports with a shrug. “Except maybe the place where he was lying in wait. It’s got a good view of the road.”

It takes effort not to growl at the thought, the knowledge that the man must have been watching them in the town—watching their dinner, watching their _date_ , waiting for them to leave the inn after they spent the night curled in the same bed. Anger skitters and sparks up Kakashi’s spine, and he breathes through it. “Thanks, Hana,” he says quietly, and Hana gives him a look that says she knows his first impulse was something else entirely, but follows Anko without another word.

“The Kusa border is only a few miles from here,” Shizune says, and she falls into step with him. She checks the dart launcher up her sleeve, careful and precise as she makes an adjustment, and then casts a sideways glance at Kakashi. “There are three rivers in the way, too. He had to have surfaced somewhere.”

Shizune is a practical soul, Kakashi thinks, and it’s faintly amused. Faintly tired, too; he can image how she got to be that way, traveling with Tsunade in her bad years. But—something about her words jars at his brain, makes him pause. He frowns, casting a look ahead of them, and…

This part of the country is familiar. He’s passed through it several times, on missions, and on one mission in particular that he’ll never be able to forget.

“Those rivers,” he says slowly. “There's one in Kusa. A main river.”

Shizune gives him a careful look, but nods. “The largest river is about four hours from the border,” she confirms. “There's a bridge the man would have had to use—”

But Kakashi doesn’t need to hear more. There's a sick, twisting feeling in his stomach, and he looks ahead of them, breathing through it.

“Kannabi Bridge,” he says quietly.

“Yes,” Shizune says, and she doesn’t know, _can't_ know. “They rebuilt it after the original one was destroyed during the Third Shinobi War.”

“I was part of the team that helped destroy it,” Kakashi says, and the words feel numb on his tongue. “There’s—a battlefield. About an hour before it. That’s where he was going.”

The site of Obito's near-death the first time around. The place where he sacrificed himself for Kakashi the first time, gave him his eye, asked him to protect Rin. Maybe the Akatsuki bastard knows about Obito's memory loss, wants to jog his memory in the harshest way possible. Maybe he just thought it was a good place to stop for the night. Either way, the bite of fury vibrates through Kakashi’s chest, curls down his throat like acid, and he breathes out slow and steady.

“Anko,” he says, and she turns, giving him her attention without pause. “You and Shizune keep following this scent. I think I know where he was headed, but I want to be sure. If you don’t meet up with us in Kusa, just keep going and we’ll find you.”

“Of course, Captain,” Anko says cheerfully, and salutes. Kakashi doesn’t wait, but tips his head at Hana and turns away. The route to the cave where Obito died is seared into his memory; there's no need to check a map or follow landmarks.

“In Kusa?” Hana asks, and her dogs mingle with Kakashi’s as they all pick up speed. Kakashi isn't worried. Between his summons and Hana's ninken, their packs can run for days at this pace without getting tired.

“About two hours over the border,” Kakashi confirms. “There's a collapsed cave.”

Hana's look is sharp, but she simply nods, lengthening her strides. Kakashi is grateful for the lack of an inquisition, even if he can't say as much. Just turns his face towards the border, praying to whatever force might be listening that they aren’t already too late.

 

 

The cave that still features in some of Kakashi’s darkest nights is grown over, weathered into something that looks almost natural instead of like the site of a tragedy. The fall of the boulders is still subtly off of something caused by an earthquake or a landslide, though, compressed and splintered in place.

It reeks of the man who took Obito, and Kakashi stares down at the stone and wants to tear the whole cave apart with his bare hands.

“These have moved recently,” Hana says, and vaults over the edge of the incline, sliding down the steep slope that was at one point a cave wall. The movement sends a shower of mud raining down after her, but it’s not enough to cover the deep drag-marks in the soft earth, carved between two of the smaller boulders.

Kakashi tears his gaze away from the place where he last saw Obito as a child, shakes himself, and heads down after her. The man’s scent is overwhelming down here; this can't be the first time he’s been here recently, and it makes Kakashi want to snarl, makes his skin _itch_. He thinks of leaving Obito that night, of _knowing_ he was dead beneath the rocks, but—

Someone must have taken him, rescued him. Maybe the man who grabbed him from the road, or maybe someone else altogether, but they saved Obito, took him away, and turned him into something else entirely. The boy Kakashi knew was angry, sometimes, but he was also _kind_. Kakashi has never met anyone more selfless.

Maybe that’s still true, in some portion of his soul that’s been buried deep down. He saved Kakashi, after all.

He tests the rocks above the stone that must have moved, traces the seams where they rest together. Tight, settled, and he frowns as he considers the rockfall as a whole; it seems like it hasn’t shifted in a very long time, and he can remember how the Iwa nin who found them compressed it, crushed it down. The exact image of the stones when they were done is hazy, confused by the fight in the immediate aftermath and then Minato's arrival to save them, the rush to destroy the bridge before any more Iwa nin could get supplies across. But…did it look like this? Or was it something smaller?

“I think a Doton would be enough to move it again,” Hana says, poking at the edges of the rock in front of her. “See? It swung out, like a door. Maybe there's something behind it.”

The hole they dug Obito's body out of, Kakashi thinks, and his breath scrapes inside his throat like knives. “How are you with Doton jutsus?” he asks.

Hana makes a face. “Good enough for most things,” she says. “I'm better with Raiton. This might be a bit too delicate for me, though.”

Kakashi inclines his head, twisting his hands into a seal and breathing out. “You might want to stand back,” he says, and Hana jumps clear, the Haimaru brothers leaping up the slope after her. Pakkun meets her at the top, peering down at Kakashi with a vaguely judgmental gaze, but Kakashi ignores him, lets his chakra rise. Doton jutsus are simple, but one this precise is a little harder, controlled movement instead of simple attack, and he concentrates, eases his chakra into it in a careful current instead of a flood—

The boulder shivers, groans, and rolls in a slow, steady motion. The upward slope keeps it controllable, and Kakashi guides it back, away from what is definitely an entrance. The marks in the earth line up perfectly, and he lets the stone go, settled at the end of the trench, and steps forward.

With a huff, Hana lands next to him, Pakkun tucked under one arm. She lets the pug down, then straightens and makes a face. “Whoever this is, he smells like corpse-water,” she says. “And grave dirt.”

“A charming member of Akatsuki, clearly,” Kakashi says dryly, even though his heartbeat is a little too fast in his chest. “You should stay back and wait for—”

“With all due respect,” Hana says, baring her teeth, “get fucked, Kakashi. You're not going to face _Akatsuki_ alone.”

Kakashi remembers with longing the days when chuunin were too scared of him to even dream of talking back or arguing with orders. Then again, Hana is the next Inuzuka Clan Head; if Kakashi wanted blind obedience, he probably shouldn’t have asked for her.

“I'm going to _sneak_ in,” he says regardless, because he has his reputation to consider.

“Then I’ll sneak with you,” Hana says sweetly. “Heel.”

She’s probably talking to her ninken and not to him, Kakashi reflects. Probably. Maybe. He eyes her as her dogs circle her feet, then says, “Uhei, find Anko and Shizune and bring them here. Pakkun, wait and translate for them.”

“Sure, Boss,” Pakkun says, though there's still that definite air of judgment to his stare. “Taking the rest with you?”

Kakashi considers it for a moment, but the entrance is small, and Hana already has her three ninken. “No,” he decides. “Thanks for your help, but that’s all I need for now.”

With puffs of smoke, the other six dogs dismiss themselves, and Pakkun leaps up to sit on the shifted boulder as Uhei turns and takes off at a long, loping run. “Good luck,” the pug offers.

Silently, Kakashi touches two fingers to his brow, then turns and ducks into the opening. It’s easy enough to tell that it’s a tunnel, sloping and leading off sharply towards the northeast. The whole thing reeks of the man who grabbed Obito, and Kakashi wrinkles his nose, grateful for the cover of his mask. Hana isn't so lucky; she sneezes, quickly putting her hand up to her nose again, but keeps walking. The ceiling is low enough that Kakashi has to walk stooped, and Hana has to keep her head ducked, but it’s worn smooth, carefully sculpted. A path meant to last, Kakashi thinks grimly. They grabbed Obito's body this way and then decided to keep it around. Probably because it opens so close to the border of Fire Country, and this is a less-traveled part of Kusa. Easy access to the central part of the continent, without any risk of border crossings being noted.

“I hope you have a nice long soak in a hot spring lined up after this,” Hana says, and sneezes again. “Your back will thank you for it by the time we get out.”

“If that’s a crack about my age, I’d like it noted that I'm a few years younger than your mother,” Kakashi retorts, and Hana laughs.

“Look at you, making my point for me,” she says, and then like it’s an easy segue, “So, since we’re sneaking into wherever the Akatsuki keep people they’ve kidnapped, or former members who are injured, I assume there's a plan?”

“I'm working on it?” Kakashi offers after a long moment.

Hana sighs. “The only reason you're still alive is your dogs,” she says, and he can _hear_ her eyes rolling. “Fine. But if we see Itachi, he’s _mine_.”

Belatedly, Kakashi remembers that they were in the same Academy class together. “…Is this because the Uchiha used nin-cats?” he asks suspiciously.

With a snicker, Hana reaches down to pat the closest Haimaru brother. “Dogs are better,” she says with complete certainty. “And yeah, it might. It might also have to do with him beating out my top score by _five points_ , the smug bastard. And you don’t kill your own pack. _Ever_.”

Well, Kakashi certainly isn't about to argue. He knows from experience that the Sharingan is best against single opponents, and an animal’s chakra system isn't all that similar to a human’s. The ninken will likely confuse Itachi, and beyond that, the fight will be four on one if Hana really does corner him. Itachi is a genius and a prodigy, but Kakashi isn't entirely willing to write off Hana's part in that fight; she’s her mother’s heir for more reasons than just her blood.

“The main part of _sneaking_ is not getting caught,” he says anyway. “In case you didn’t know. I’ve heard the Inuzuka don’t have much experience with it.”

Hana's bark of laughter is unnervingly like Tsume’s. “Shut your trap, Hatake. Your mother was one of us, so you don’t have a leg to stand on.”

And the Inuzuka will never let him forget it, Kakashi thinks with a mostly-theatrical sigh. Hana just snickers, because she’s awful.

Hopefully Anko and Shizune will catch up quickly. Kakashi could use the backup, in more ways than one.

He looks ahead of them, at the long, straight line of the tunnel that vanishes into the darkness, and breathes in, breathes out. There's the faintest trace of Obito's scent, almost overwhelmed by the other man’s, and he imprints it on his senses, makes sure he won't lose it no matter how long they spend down here. Obito is ahead of them, Obito needs to be saved, and for once, Kakashi is going to return the favor.

 

 

“Did you know there are the remnants of a seal on your heart?”

Obito is only barely back to the edges of consciousness, clinging to them tightly, and he stares up at the stone of the ceiling for a long moment, trying to process. A seal. On his heart. In addition to the piece of stone lodged in his brain? That seems like a really large and emphatic _fuck you_ straight from the lips of fate.

“What kind of seal?” he rasps, and thinks about sitting up, but scraps the idea almost immediately. His whole body hurts, sharp and hot like someone ran an electrical current through his bones, and there's a fuzzy edge to all of his thoughts.

“A control seal,” Sasori says, leaning over him with faintly narrowed eyes. “In Suna we sometimes call it a Slave Seal. The control is simple, but after a long enough time, its influence builds catastrophically for the host.”

A Slave Seal, Obito thinks, and wants to laugh. Wants to puke. Wants to dig up Madara's corpse and burn it, then dance in the ashes just to piss the old man off. “ _What_ control?” he demands.

Sasori raises one brow, but doesn’t otherwise remark on the tone. “The host can't commit suicide,” he says bluntly, “though several people have found ways around that order. You also cannot remove the seal. There is no outright control of the mind, but it has influence. Decisions that fall under the seal’s intent feel easier than others that would go against it. Certain thoughts are marked as less important than others. Small things.”

But with a large impact by the end, Obito thinks, and grits his teeth. Of fucking _course_ Madara would put something like that on him. He’d suspected there was something, because Madara was too crafty not to leave himself a few guarantees, but hearing it laid out so plainly—

“The shard?” he asks, instead of saying _I'm going to tear Zetsu's throat out with my teeth_ , the way he wants to.

Sasori smirks. “Would you like it for a keepsake? It might make a nice necklace.”

Obito chokes on a laugh, then holds out a hand. Sasori clasps his wrist, pulling him up to sit, and Obito groans as he straightens but doesn’t waver once he’s up. “Thank you,” he says.

Inclining his head, Sasori takes a step back, then looks him over closely. “You remember,” he says, and it’s not a question.

“Yeah,” Obito says roughly, and rubs a hand over his face. He does, but—it’s doubled up in places. Feels split, like two lines of thought running next to each other. Hatred, but something else at the same time, and that’s—

Well. He’s never had a simple relationship with Kakashi. Why should he start now?

He’s not as angry, though. His head is clearer, and there's a sense of relief somewhere in his chest. It’s easy enough to remember the bomb falling, almost on top of Kakashi, and Obito had been hiding, observing, waiting to see what came of the Kazekage's capture, but it was so instinctive to reach out, to pull the bomb into Kamui and then back out the other side a safe distance away. He’d thought Deidara would assume it a miss, that he’d keep going, but—

He’d been too quick, had underestimated the fuse on Deidara's bomb, had forgotten how easily the rocks in the middle of Suna's desert shattered. The bomb detonated, and the rock exploded, and there was no way Kakashi would be able to avoid all the shrapnel in time. And Obito, despite everything, Rin's death and killing Minato and Kushina and a hundred thousand other terrible things—

He couldn’t let Kakashi die.

Zetsu's reaction, in the aftermath of his memory loss, was telling. Obito is still just a pawn to him and Madara, a useful tool. _You ruined our plans_ , he’d said, and Obito knows that for once it wasn’t the _we_ that refers to the two halves of Zetsu. _We_ meant Zetsu and the man pulling his strings, the man who put a Slave Seal on Obito's heart and set him loose on an unprepared world to turn everything into a dream.

When Obito lived the way he did after his best friend’s death, mired in a black world full of hate and hellish suffering, it was easy enough to go along with everything Madara saw for the future, to want that pretty dream. But now…

Obito curls his fingers, remembering the feel of Kakashi’s between them. Remembering Kakashi’s kiss, and the way he touched Obito, careful, almost reverent. If he turns the world into a dream, if everything is a sweet genjutsu, he won't ever know that again. A shadow of it, maybe, but—that part was _real_.

Obito doesn’t want to lose the first real spark of light he’s seen in fifteen years.

When he raises his head, Sasori is still watching him closely, a little narrowly. Wary, Obito thinks, and meets brown eyes steadily. Right now Sasori is a threat, but he’s also an asset.

(He’s also someone who could be a friend, Obito thinks, and doesn’t know why he’s never thought it before.)

“Boss,” Sasori says, like a test.

“Puppet,” Obito correct bitterly, and when Sasori raises a brow he laughs without humor. “Would you put a Slave Seal on an equal partner in a plot?”

Sasori concedes that with a tip of his head. “Puppet,” he agrees. “Of Zetsu?”

“And Uchiha Madara,” Obito says, and swings his legs off the operating table, testing his balance as he stands carefully. Sasori doesn’t try to help, just watches, and Obito lets out a silent breath of relief when his knees hold. He can still feel that electric ache in his bones, but it’s bearable. Most things are. “They— _we_ wanted to catch the world in a massive genjutsu of a good reality, without struggle, using the moon as a way to broadcast it across the world.”

There's a moment of thoughtful silence as Sasori chews on this fact. “The moon,” he finally says. “But what about when the moon is in a different phase? Genjutsus require eye contact, or at least line of sight. Would the genjutsu break on the new moon and have to be renewed every month, given how it would be out of sight then?”

Obito blinks, caught entirely off guard. He—he hadn’t considered that. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Madara just—he was going to use the bijuu to release the Juubi, and take its power to transfer his Eternal Mangekyō…”

Sasori’s expression is the very furthest thing from impressed. “You wanted to wipe out everyone in the world,” he says flatly, and when Obito opens his mouth to protest, he raises a hand. “Those caught in the genjutsu could not eat. They likely could not move. They would die of dehydration in a handful of days. I'm sure their dreams would be very satisfying in the meantime, but they would die with the month.”

“I—what?” Obito sits down again, a little harder than he means to. It seems obvious now that Sasori is pointing it out, but he’s never actually considered that part before, either. “The genjutsu…”

“The mind can do a great many incredible things, especially augmented by chakra,” Sasori says dryly. “But creating nutrients out of nothing is not one of them. It would be a slow, painful death for every person in the genjutsu. At least those not like myself.” He folds his arms over his chest, frowning, and looks Obito over again. “I assume the Slave Seal pushed you away from considering the specifics.”

“Probably?” Obito says, bewildered. “But—that’s just me. Why wasn’t _Madara_ considering them?”

Sasori blinks, then frowns at that as well. “Perhaps he didn’t care?” he suggests. “A version of suicide that took the world along with him?”

If fits but it doesn’t, and Obito rubs a thumb over the back of his opposite hand, tries not to think of Kakashi doing the same thing. “I thought he just wanted a better world,” Obito says, but in light of the seal on his heart all of his memories are suddenly suspect, nothing certain any longer. He doesn’t know what’s him and what was the nudging of the seal, pushing him down a path he might not have picked on his own.

“Perhaps.” Sasori shrugs. “It’s likely impossible to be certain now that he is dead. Zetsu may have the answers, but he does not seem…forthcoming.”

Zetsu, Obito thinks, frowning. He’s going to be a problem. “How do you kill something made out of willpower?” he mutters, and rubs a hand over his face.

There's a pause, careful, considering. “Are you killing him for the seal on your heart?” Sasori asks, clinically curious instead of judgmental. “Or do you no longer wish to go through with this…genjutsu plan?”

That tone makes it clear what Sasori thinks of the goal, Obito reflects wryly. “It was never meant to kill everyone,” he says, meeting Sasori’s cold gaze. “It was meant to be a better world, just—with less bloodshed than Nagato's.”

Sasori accepts that reasoning with a tip of his head. “Then Akatsuki as an organization has lost much of its function,” he says, sounding vaguely amused. “Or will you go with Nagato's world after all?”

Obito closes his eyes, trying to think it through. The image in his head is the one it always is at times like this, Rin with a hand through her heart, dying at Kakashi’s hand. A black world, yawning in his chest, ready to pull him under and swallow him whole.

(Kakashi, leaning over him in the desert with wide eyes, horror and hope and terror on his face, whispering _Obito?_ )

“Nagato doesn’t believe in his world, either,” he says, and he’s known it for years now. “Not enough to carry though. His conviction isn't anywhere close to strong enough.”

“Is yours?” Sasori asks, and once more it’s distantly curious, asking for the sake of knowing more than because Sasori has any sort of investment in the answer.

Obito considers it, conquering the world with the bijuu and an army of missing-nin, controlling all the countries and the people with fear and an iron fist. Closes his eyes, because that was exactly the world Rin would have hated the most, even if there's a chance it could have kept her alive.

“No,” he says softly. “My conviction isn't strong enough, either.”

“Then perhaps,” Sasori says, “there is another path that you haven’t considered, which you would have the conviction for.”

It’s impossible to forget, right now, that Sasori’s story is painfully like Obito's own. He lost his parents to the fighting as well, and then his best friend. He even killed the Sandaime Kazekage, one of his mentors, after deserting the village. Was a prodigy instead of an outcast, maybe, but—everything else feels far too similar. Sasori has just as much reason to want the fighting to stop as anyone else in Akatsuki. More than some, certainly.

“I'm open to ideas,” he says, holding Sasori’s gaze, and Sasori smiles just a little, a sly curve to one corner of his mouth, and inclines his head in acceptance of the unspoken offer.

“Kisame?” he asks.

That’s easier. Obito lets out a breath, tries for a smile of his own. “Kisame wants a better world as much as anyone,” he says. “He’ll follow as long as we can lay out a path.”

Obito might be imagining the flicker of relief that crosses Sasori’s face, whether at not having to fight Kiri's Tailless Tailed Beast or for another reason entirely. “My collection of human puppets was decimated by that old hag,” he says, and it’s slightly bitter but touched with something else as well. “And the Konoha girl. Factor that into your plans.”

They’ll have to factor in Konan as well, Obito thinks. If anyone can convince Nagato to look for a new way, she’s the one, and she’s also reasonable. If she hears that Obito was planning something entirely different, that he was going to betray them and steal Nagato's eyes, she’ll likely try to kill him, but she’ll also take a new path. That’s worth her inevitable assassination attempt. Obito can survive it. Well, probably.

“Kabuto and Orochimaru’s records of Edo Tensei will need to be destroyed as well,” he says, grimacing. “If someone resurrects Madara, he’ll try to restart the Eye of the Moon Plan no matter what logistical failures it has. Reason isn't exactly his strong suit.”

Sasori snorts, but straightens. “I will see to Kabuto and Orochimaru,” he says, and that smile is _nasty_. “Perhaps there will be something in Orochimaru’s labs that we can use to remove Zetsu from play.”

And if there isn't, Obito can attempt to lock him away in the Kamui dimension. If he tries, he can probably imbed him in one of the cubes that fill it—they're hollow, as he’s found from experimenting, and also indestructible. If one of them _and_ the fact of being in a separate dimension can't contain Zetsu, Obito doesn’t know what will. Maybe once Nagato comes around he can send back the Demonic Statue, too. That will remove as many pieces from the board as possible, and at the very least give them some breathing room.

“I can't believe I never thought about people needing _water_ ,” he mutters, rubbing at his face. “Fucking _idiot._ Kakashi was right to call me a useless moron.”

Tellingly, Sasori doesn’t attempt to argue. “Shall I inform your minders that you remembered a vital task and left immediately after your surgery to complete it?” he asks dryly.

Obito opens his mouth, pauses, closes it. That—that would mean he could go back to Kakashi. Kakashi’s probably looking for him right now, and has no idea where he is or—

Or what Obito has done.

Nausea swims in his stomach, and Obito closes his eyes. Right. Well. That does take care of a lot of his potential decisions, doesn’t it? He’ll have to tell Kakashi what he did, that he was the one who freed the Kyuubi fifteen years ago, that he’s the reason Minato and Kushina are dead. That he’s had a change of heart, far too little and far too late, but—there, at the very least. And if Kakashi wants nothing to do with him afterwards, that’s entirely his right. Obito will get out of his sight, keep moving, keep his head down, try to find another way to a world that isn't quite as dark and terrible as this one.

A lot of the dark and terrible things are Obito's fault, so it shouldn’t be too hard.

Before he can come to a decision, there's a rap on the door. “Just checking in,” Kisame calls cheerfully. “Need an extra hand?”

Sasori glances over at Obito, who rolls his eyes but slides back onto the table, lying down flat and closing his eyes. “I would ask _Deidara_ to help me with surgery before I asked you,” Sasori says dryly. “I believe I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed, Kisame.”

“During the surgery,” Kisame reminds him. “You weren’t planning to start for another few hours, though.”

With a soft sigh, Sasori turns away, crossing the room to pull the door open. “His condition worsened,” he says bluntly, and there's a sharply indrawn breath from Kisame. “I was forced to operate immediately or risk losing him.”

Kisame's steps are incongruously light for a man of his size, especially one sporting a sword as big as his. “Is he okay?” he asks, hushed, and there’s a big hand on Obito's scarred cheek, a careful touch that he can hardly feel.

There's a pause, and then Sasori says briskly, “He should be. He will need peace and rest until he has recovered, though.”

“Okay if I take him back to his room?” Kisame asks, and chuckles. “It’s pretty far out of the way. Shouldn’t be any more bombs dropping on him.”

“Very well,” Sasori allows. “But give him as much time alone as possible. And don’t jar him.”

“Sure,” Kisame says cheerfully, and a moment later there's an arm sliding under Obito's shoulders, another beneath his knees. Kisame lifts him like a child, carefully settling him against his chest, and then offers, “Thanks, Sasori. I owe you one.”

“You do,” Sasori says, tone bored. “I expect you to make it up to me at the next available opportunity.”

This time Kisame's chuckle is almost bashful. “Sure,” he agrees, and they pass out of the light of Sasori’s workshop and into the relative darkness of the tunnel beyond. For a moment all Obito can hear are Kisame's steps, and then Kisame's grip tightens just a little and he says, “Glad you're going to be okay, Boss. You had us worried there.”

It doesn’t sound like he’s expecting any sort of response, so Obito keeps playing unconscious, even as his heart trips just a little. Kisame is loyal, and he’s spent a long time looking for a reason to keep moving. Obito was trying to give that to him, with the Eye of the Moon plan, but—it never quite fit. It was a world built of lies, and Kisame wanted the truth. Maybe now Obito can find a way to give it to him.

 _Sorry, Kisame,_ he thinks, and means for more than just the lies he’s personally told the swordsman. Thinks about opening his eyes, looking up—

All at once, Kisame stops, muscles going tense in an instant. “What are you doing in here?” he asks, just barely above a threat.

There's a long, long second of silence. “Ah,” a terribly familiar voice says. “We seem to have gotten a little turned around on the road of life and ended up here.”

 _Fuck_ , Obito thinks, viciously and desperately.

A woman laughs, rough and wild. “I guess your sneaking skills are about Inuzuka level after all,” she tells Kakashi, and there's a trebled growl. Dogs, and _big_ dogs at that. Ninken, so she’s likely an Inuzuka, likely tracked Zetsu here.

Damn. This is all going south a hell of a lot faster than Obito thought it could, but then, he wasn’t counting on Kakashi’s inescapable ability to screw up his plans.

“Maa, maa, Hana, be nice,” Kakashi says, mock-wounded. A pause, and he offers, “That looks like a heavy load you're carrying. Want to hand him over?”

A challenge, that tone. Sharp and dangerous underneath the placid joking, and of _course_ Kakashi would pick a fight with Kisame in unfamiliar territory, in a narrow corridor, with a _mountain_ over their heads and just waiting to come down.

Kisame laughs, and it’s a threat, all razor edges and cutting humor. “So you can take him back and execute him?” he says. “Sorry. Besides, it’ll be hard to take care of him when you're in a coffin yourself, won't it?”

There's a drop, then earth beneath Obito. Kisame sets him on the floor, carefully arranging his limbs for comfort, and straightens again. “Two shinobi and some dogs,” he says cheerfully. “You might be enough to count for my morning exercise, if you don’t die too quickly.”

There's no answer except the crackle of lightning, like the chirping of a thousand birds. “Hana,” Kakashi says tightly. “When it’s clear—”

“I’ll grab him,” Hana agrees, and whistles, long and low. From somewhere distant, there's a higher, answering whistle, and Hana laughs. “Sure you don’t want to wait?”

“Anko likes to butt in on my fights,” Kakashi says mildly, and Kisame chuckles. Bandages flutter, Samehada’s wrappings falling away, and—

Obito opens his eyes. He can't feel Zetsu near them, no trace of his chakra in the tunnels anywhere under the mountain, and that’s enough of an edge. In an instant, Kamui whirls up, space bending, and Obito drops into the strange half-light, grabs for one of the weapons he’s stored there, and feels a hilt meet his hand. Then he’s through, landing hard, balance just steady enough. There's a cry, and he twists to the side, kicks Kakashi’s arm out with a jolt of electricity that snaps through his bones. He raises the blade, throws all of his weight forward, and with a crash that vibrates through him he stops Samehada mid-strike.

There's a second of stunned silence. “Boss?” Kisame asks, eyes wide.

Obito gives him his best attempt at a smile. “Later, Kisame,” he says. “ _Trust me_.” And there's nothing in him that deserves Kisame's trust, not in this, but he twists, disengages with a jerk, raises a hand. Kamui warps Kisame away even as the swordsman yelps, and it only takes half a second of concentration for Obito to dump him right on his bed in his room, three floors up.

Down the hall, the door opens, and Sasori leans out into the hallway. He looks at Obito hanging onto his sword and vaguely unsteady, at Kakashi sprawled against the wall, at Hana still crouched to lunge, and then slowly, deliberately closes the door again with a decisive click.

Obito catches himself on the wall with one hand, cursing the ache in his bones. He’s used to things like this, because the grafted limbs hurt more often than he’d like, but it’s aggravating, slows him down. He breathes out through his teeth, then forces himself to straighten, turns.

“Bakashi,” he tells Kakashi, exasperated. “Why the hell would you come _here_? Are you trying to die?”

There's a long, long pause, and then Kakashi chuckles. He pushes up, shaking dirt off of his hand from where his Raikiri struck the wall, and says, “Well, if you're going to get yourself kidnapped like a princess with a particularly valuable dowry, you should probably be prepared for people to come rescue you, Obito.”

Obito's breath might be laughter, might be giddy relief. He reaches out, not able to help himself, and the sword drops from his hand as Kakashi catches him, drags him up and in to a tight hug. Obito practically collapses against him, not because his legs can't hold him but because it’s _Kakashi_ , and he buries his face in the curve of Kakashi’s neck, wraps his arms around him and holds on as tightly as he dares.

“You _asshole_ ,” he says, ragged. “Why would you drag a missing-nin on a damned _road trip_?”

“Because the missing-nin was cute,” Kakashi says shamelessly, and doesn’t loosen his grip even an inch. “And just so happened to have saved my life. Twice.”

Guilt and relief are a choking tide, ready to drown Obito completely. “You're such an idiot,” he tells Kakashi, but he doesn’t try to let go. Clings tighter, thinking this could be the last moment, and gets out, “Kakashi, I'm the one—”

“I know,” Kakashi says quietly, and his fingers find Obito's hair, tighten there, holding Obito against him. “You can tell me later.”

“Much later,” Hana puts in, cocking her head and glancing up the tunnel. “I think the guy with the teeth is coming back, and he doesn’t sound happy.”

Obito isn't surprised. Kisame definitely isn't the type to be easily deterred. “Is there anyone else here?” he asks, and Kakashi reluctantly lets him go when he pulls back.

“Just us,” a cheerful voice says, and a vaguely familiar woman with violet hair leans around the corner, the Hokage's assistant one step behind her. She grins at Obito and waves, like there isn't a massive white snake wrapped around her neck. “Hi! Are you the princess?”

“I hate you,” Obito tells Kakashi, who gives him a shameless smile.

“How else was I supposed to describe you?” he asks, and raises one of Obito's hands to his covered mouth, kissing his knuckles through the mask.

Obito tells himself desperately that he isn't going to blush, and looks away from Kakashi’s stupid smiling face just so that he won't be lying to himself. “Get over here and I’ll get us back to Konoha,” he says, and the two women trot down the tunnel to slot themselves in next to Hana and her ninken.

“As easy as that?” Kakashi asks, raising a brow at him.

Obito’s smile is tired, resigned, rueful. “Don’t make surrendering myself to Konoha sound so easy, Bakashi,” he says softly, because that’s what this is. He might be able to escape, might be able to slip out unnoticed once Sasori has had a chance to deal with Kabuto, Orochimaru, and Edo Tensei, but…this is a surrender. He’s giving up, giving in. The plan he gave everything for, killed for, ruined lives for—it’s worthless and always was.

Kakashi’s hand touches his shoulder, slides up to cup his face. He pulls Obito in, resting their foreheads together, and breathes out, and it’s like the moment by the stream when Kakashi swore he wouldn’t leave him.

( _This_ , Obito thinks. _This isn’t worthless. I won’t let it be._ )

“Let’s go home, Obito,” he says, and Obito pulls his mask down and kisses him, deep and sweet and desperate, even as they fall through the half-light and back out into the glow of the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as blackkatmagick now!


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